


beyond the barricade

by tjmraso



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Road Trips, Slow Burn, alternative universe, vampire!bonnie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-02-28 08:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmraso/pseuds/tjmraso
Summary: When a witch is turned into a vampire, they lose their magic. Some lose the will to live, some turn to killing, trying to replace the rush of power they used to feel on a daily basis. And some, like Bonnie Bennett, search for ways to get it back.A rumor about a woman in Russia, who's able to help someone in her position, has lit a fire in Bonnie's heart, and to get there, she's employed the most unappreciated, arguably the craziest and definitely the most bored Original vampire to protect her during her travels.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. English is not my native language. But I love it so much; I choose to write in it. Sorry about that. But in all seriousness, I did my best to fix any grammar and spelling errors I could find. Please point out those that escaped me.  
> 2\. I am not a fan of TVD or TO; I am a fan of Bonnie. And I like Kennett very much. It was born as a crack!ship but became so much more. I am writing characters the way I remember them, and the way I expect them to behave in situations I put them in. So, I'm sorry about all the potential OOC stuff.  
> 3\. I know a lot of things have happened and are happening with Kol on TO. But for the sake of this story, let's imagine that he's mostly living in New Orleans, doesn't want to be there and is very very very bored.

"So, where are you from?" - The girl asked, probably expecting him to tell a fascinating tale about an English man's adventures in the US. Kol stirred his Old Fashioned once again, bored out of his mind, but hungry enough to endure this ridiculous conversation he'd been having with his future supper.

"Ah, all over the place, darling," he replied, his signature grin was ready and worked like a charm, "I'm sure your story is much more interesting."

She blushed, sipping her strawberry margarita, but seemed happy and eager to share.

"I was born here. Never really moved anywhere, just stayed put. This is an extraordinary city, isn't it?"

Kol nodded in agreement. Out of all the big cities and little towns in this country, San Francisco has always been one of his favorites. Whenever he was bored, felt a bit out of place or needed to get away from the toxic family he belonged to, Kol came here, to drink stiff scotch and warm blood of sun-kissed women. The whole world could burn, he sometimes thought, as long as he had his San Francisco.

And this woman, smelling faintly of expensive perfume, sweat, weed, strawberry, tequila, and lime, was to become something brilliant to him, in a dark alley behind the bar, almost willingly giving up her life force.

But then, another smell invaded the mix, and while it was a familiar one, he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So Kol stayed in place, seemingly engrossed in the woman's words, but really, trying to figure out, which one of his acquaintances had just entered the bar.

The answer presented itself quickly, the smell grew stronger and a voice he found very easy to recognize came from behind.

"Hey, can I get a Bloody Mary, please?"

And while the bartender was asking her for some identification, Kol turned around, and everything hit him all at once. A couple of stools down stood the pretty little witch from a horrible mess of a town now known as Mystic Falls. Her hair was shorter than she wore it usually, barely touching her shoulders, her stance was steady and sure as she held his gaze, and she still smelled familiar but not quite the same as before. And he recognized the difference.

Bonnie Bennett was no longer a witch, but a vampire.

 

\------

The girl was hurt, but not bothered enough to let Kol go without her number scribbled on a thin white napkin. It was nice to see someone writing and carrying a pen around, Bonnie observed. She knew she didn't have to walk up to Kol because as soon as he noticed her, his curiosity got the better of him. She sipped her drink as the man walked down the bar, his eyes firmly set on hers and a familiar grin tracing his curved lips.

"Now this," he said, "is unexpected. A Bennett witch made a vampire? Surely you have to be the first one, darling."

"You forgot about my mother," Bonnie noted, her face expressionless. "Can we get out of here? I'd like to talk to you in private."

With Bonnie Bennett, the witch of Mystic Falls, he would have never gone to the dark alley where he was planning to have his way with a sweet smelling San Francisco native, but vampire Bonnie was brand new and had nothing that could harm an Original. So here they were, in a secluded back alley, as far away from overflowing trash cans as possible.

"Now, love, before you start," Kol mused, "I'd very much like to know what happened here." He gestured to where Bonnie was standing.

The witch didn't hold on to the answer for longer than a second. "Elena had witch troubles. A powerful one, the one I took care of but had been left incapacitated. Some vampire took what he thought was pity on me, hence," she paused for another short moment, "this."

"And when you woke..."

"I fed," Bonnie finished for him. "See, since our last meeting, I've changed, and quite a bit."

Kol glanced at her. Vampirism suited this woman, and she did grow to become one before the big change. While she had always been beautiful and vigorous, both of these qualities were all but seeping through her pores now. She had always been lean, and her figure stirred some desires in him, now she was magnificent, and it was hard to tear his gaze from her firm hips, dressed modestly in skinny black jeans. Complemented by a simple white top, heavy brown boots and a battered leather jacket that did her figure no justice, the entire ensemble made it seem like she was a bit older and more experienced. From what Kol could tell, though, she's been made a vampire no longer than four years ago.

"What do you want from me, darling?" he smiled, eyes still glued to her hips, "our family hasn't been bothering your helpless friends for a while now."

"I'm not here about your family," Bonnie smiled, "I want a favor. From you."

Now, this was getting more intriguing by the minute. "You spoil my supper and ask for a favor?"

The witch, - _damn it_ , thought Kol, _I should stop calling her that_ , again, didn't wait to answer, not at all. It seemed that after the change she'd become more reckless. Might have been because to her friends, who'd used her with absolutely no regard for her troubles and feelings before, she was now pretty much useless. Just another vampire. Well, they'd had plenty of those. And while he did hear of witches turned into vampires and managing to keep their power, this might not have been what happened to Bonnie.

"I'm going to Russia," she said, ignoring the wonder in his gaze, "and I want to invite you to come with me."

Now, that wasn't something he would've expected. Kol thought, she'd ask him for a favor that would take no longer than a couple of days to take care of, and then she'd be in his debt. But going to Russia, this was a long-term commitment. Few weeks, definitely, maybe even months. "And you seriously expect me to believe that you didn't have anyone better to ask?"

Bonnie responded with a smile, and her words followed suit. "I don't. I've heard enough about that vampire community to know that going there alone wouldn't be wise. All my friends are tied up, one way or another, and definitely won't risk their lives and well-being for this insane thing I'm about to do."

"So, where do I come in?"

Bonnie pressed her back against the brick wall. "You are the black sheep of your family, Kol. You come to San Francisco every couple of months, to get away from them. I've done my homework like a good little school girl you still think I am. I need someone ruthless and someone strong enough to go there with me. And you're pretty much as strong a vampire as they come."

"You don't need to flatter me, darling," Kol sneered, although admittedly, he enjoyed the acknowledgment of his strength. "I get it; you want someone to protect you while you're doing whatever it is you're planning to do. I've traveled there a couple of times; it's not that scary, Bennett, you'll be fine on your own. For a vampire, their cities are as safe as, say, Chicago. Worst case, Baltimore."

"I'm not going to any cities, Kol," Bonnie said, "I'm planning on visiting three villages. One near Vladivostok, one deep in Siberia and another one quite close to Moscow."

Now, this made a bit more sense. Russian vampires who found homes in the country, away from big cities and active law enforcement forces, had a reputation for their ruthlessness and absolute disregard for any way of life after death other than their own. They never drank from animals, kept humans they fed on tied up in basements and cellars, never bothered to steal blood bags from hospitals when there were warm inviting bodies all around them. Their unwavering honesty was quite refreshing to Kol, and it span from regular humans to every supernatural being there was.

Sure, Kol Mikaelson enjoyed Russia. And he was looking forward to going back there, and having Bonnie Bennett, suddenly unable to hurt him and even being one of his kind, having become something she'd always hated, was going to be a lot of fun. Kol was going to taunt her into madness, just for the hell of it. And he wasn't even going to pretend that he didn't want to go.

"I'm in."

Bonnie looked stunned.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Kol smirked at her, "meet me tomorrow morning, at St. Regis. It's 125 Third Street. There are going to be two girls working reception. Amanda and Sarah. Tell them you're there to see Tarquin Armand and that you'll wait at the bar. And then," his smile stretched wide, "wait at the bar."

And then, Bonnie started laughing. She put her hands on her stomach and all but bent over and fell on the ground. She didn't need to gasp for air anymore, but a habit twenty years in the making wasn't that easy to break.

"Tarquin Armand? Seriously?" she finally gathered herself, but her eyes were still glistening with amusement.

Kol only shrugged, easily able to stop himself from smiling. "What can I say, I like these books. It's not every day that an annoying little ex-witch asks you to go to Russia with her. And there are a lot of ways to pass the time and not die from boredom when nothing particularly interesting is happening," he stopped for a second then, as if fishing for a question he forgot to ask. He smirked, as it came back to him. "Oh, sorry darling, I didn't mean to seem unattentive... why exactly are we going there?"

Bonnie held his gaze, laughter and smiles wiped clean off her face. "I'm going to get my magic back."

Kol scoffed. "Sure, love, you do that."

He was walking away, already calling the girl from the bar, hunger not as present and evidently detectable in him as it was with other vampires, Bonnie included. She looked up at the few stars that were visible that night, smiled to herself and silently promised that she would be successful in her quest. After all, it was the only thing that kept her going.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You will be just fine, Miss Bennett," he said from the door, turning to look at her with a small smile, "you don't need a sire to help you and don't need the bond to keep you sane. And if someday we meet again, I hope to find you happy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [UPD]: I remembered Stefan's fate in TVD, so the chapter was updated with minor changes (Stefan to Caroline)
> 
> 1\. I am not very happy with this chapter, but it was necessary to put in some essential backstory and to move Bonnie and Kol along.  
> 2\. The POVs are going to be changing from chapter to chapter, so hopefully, the next one will have explained Kol's decision to help Bonnie with more detail.

It's been four years already since Bonnie Bennett became a vampire, but not once did she try to use compulsion on a person. To get blood after the turn, she broke into hospitals and took as little as she needed to go by on, Caroline taught her to hunt in the woods, too, but animal blood did little for the hunger that was ever so present in her mind now. But still, something made her different from every other vampire she'd ever encountered. Amazed at her ability to control that hunger, her friends figured that the reason was her previous experience in managing a mighty thing inside of her. That thing was magic, her powers which she struggled with for years but got a grip on them after all. Bonnie, on the other hand, didn't think that it made her special. She figured, after some time, that she was better at it because subconsciously, she didn't want to do it.

Bonnie didn't want to become a vampire, but an overly righteous one turned her anyway. He didn't stick around after that, only staying to make sure that she fed and completed the change. But Bonnie had learned to adapt to the horrors life has been throwing at her for years, and she wasn't going to sacrifice herself again. Even if drinking blood that would keep her alive after death meant that she was giving up on her pride. So she drank what he offered, and watched him leave.

 _"You will be just fine, Miss Bennett,"_ he said from the door, turning to look at her with a small smile, _"you don't need a sire to help you and don't need the bond to keep you sane. And if someday we meet again, I hope to find you happy."_

Standing at the reception stand in the St. Regis hotel, one of the best in San Francisco, Bonnie was unquestionably not happy. Both Amanda and Sarah were wearing their shirts buttoned all the way up, something none of the staff chose to do on this hot and humid morning. And while she never compelled people and never learned how to, finding out where which room the mysterious Tarquin Armand has been occupying for the last few days only cost her twenty bucks. A stoned bellboy, fresh off his double shift, smoking at the back exit, was all too happy to tattle on Kol. He babbled on about the vampire's habits and the fact that the hotel was apparently treating him as the most valued guest, footing the bill and going as far as offering the man a butler to tend to all his needs for the entirety of his stay in San Francisco.

And while the opportunity to show off and throw Kol off his feet for a little bit was tempting, Bonnie decided to follow his instructions and wait at the bar. Getting through to Amanda and Sarah proved harder than she'd anticipated. Both women were dazed and seemed a bit lost. Bonnie had no doubts about where they had spent the night and how much blood they had lost just a few hours earlier. The line was getting longer, people were getting angrier, and soon their supervisor had to come out of the office and take over. He sent the girls away, to get some coffee and sober up, which was what he thought was wrong with them, and the line that wasn't even supposed to be there at this time of day started moving.

When Bonnie's turn came, she put on her prettiest smile and her best Southern accent.

"Good morning to you, sir! I'm here to see one of your guests, Mr. Tarquin Armand, could you please call his room and tell him that his old friend is waiting at the bar?"

Sean, at least that was what his nametag said, snickered at the name, and Bonnie's smile grew even wider in return. "Sure, miss, just a minute."

He made the call to Kol's room, repeated her message and turned to Bonnie once again, right after ending the call.

"Mister Armand will be down shortly. Might I suggest you try our continental breakfast?"

 

\------

She didn't get the breakfast but asked for a Virgin Mary at the bar. She hopped onto the high stool, much more gracefully than she would have before the turn. Bonnie had a backpack with her, which held Emily Bennett's Grimoire and what little space there was left she filled with what she had kept of her possessions. It was now laying on the floor, next to the stool she was occupying. Bonnie wasn't supposed to look like she belonged in a lavishly furnished bar on the ground floor of one of the best hotels in San Francisco. With her worn-out clothes, the same ensemble she had been wearing the night before, her backpack filled to its limit, Bonnie was supposed to look like a college student taking a gap year to travel across the country with as little baggage as possible. But something about the way she was holding herself, her stance and the sparkle in her eyes made her fit in perfectly with the crowd.

"You look like a millionaire's daughter who'd just become a Buddhist and went onto some expedition around the continent to find peace of mind or something," said Kol, sitting down next to her.

Bonnie snickered into her glass.

"So," he continued, "tell me more. Why exactly do you need to go to Russia to get your magic back? And how is it even possible?"

It wasn't a sure thing, exactly. But there were rumors about a witch back in Russia, who changed into a vampire near the end of her life, who managed to get her powers back and become one of the fiercest creatures in the world. After a couple of years of searching for any information about her, without actually going across the ocean, Bonnie learned the name of the village she has been living in for centuries, from Sylvia, a three-hundred-year-old vampire, who'd once encountered that woman. Sylvia and Bonnie met in a small pub in Boston, and while they didn't become friends, they kept in touch. Sylvia was probably the most optimistic vampire that Bonnie has ever met and happened to have the most curious and fascinating mind of any person, living or otherwise.

"The village, it's called Yaganovo, maybe you've heard of it?"

Kol shook his head, running his finger along the rim of the bourbon glass.

"There are three villages with the same name. Sadly, my contact, the girl who'd met this woman, found her in a church in Ekaterinburg and never managed to find out which one of the villages she lives in."

"You're saying," again, Kol was shaking his head, "that she's been living there for centuries. In the same place. Same village, same house, with people being born, growing up, having kids and dying all around her, and she's just staying there? And they see her every day and don't care that she's not aging? How is it even possible?"

Bonnie remembered asking the same question almost a year ago, remembered Sylvia laughing in response.

 _"This is a strange thing,"_ Sylvia had said back then, _"I don't know why they don't care. It's like a constantly changing group of people is keeping a secret without any real reason to do so. I truly don't get it. They should be scared, but there's probably something about that village, something wonderful and magical. Oh, Bonnie, I wish I could go there with you."_

She stayed with Sylvia for a while after that. Bonnie's new friend has accumulated quite a library over the years, but her genuine fascination lay with journals. Together they went through thousands of those before Bonnie had enough proof, which still wasn't exactly ironclad.

"Oh, sweet little Bonnie," Kol grinned, with nothing positive behind his smile, "some crazy bitch fills your head with hope, and here you are, flying off to Russia with an original vampire you're supposed to hate. Do you even realize how much you will owe me for this?"

"Well, I didn't see you struggle with the decision to come with me," Bonnie responded, "seems like you're the one who's looking forward to this little trip."

Kol laughed, again. "I haven't been in a good fight for a long while, and you can be sure that we'll get into a few of those over there."

He pushed his phone across the table so that Bonnie could see the screen. There was an email, confirming the purchase of two tickets to Vladivostok, with a 5-hour layover in Incheon. Bonnie tried to check the price to pay Kol back, but he snatched the phone from her before she could.

"You didn't exactly pay for it, did you?" Bonnie asked, suspicious.

"I haven't exactly paid for anything in centuries, darling," Kol shrugged, "do you, still?"

"Of course I do. Caroline didn't only teach me how to hunt. Sometimes I think that she's the last vampire who's paying for the shit he's getting," she picked up her glass. The ice was melting, pushing the tomato juice down and the water up. Suddenly, Kol's hand was on her arm. Bonnie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He still scared her, even more so than before. Back then she was able to protect herself, to hurt him.

"You can't compel humans, can you, love?" he smiled, "you've been a vampire for how long now?"

"Almost four years."

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You can't keep going without it, darling. And I'm not just saying this to piss you off," he fixed his gaze on hers, not a trace of humor in his eyes anymore, "you're young, and if you haven't made a mistake yet, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen one day. Someone will see you, who you are, and you won't be able to fix it. You're a vampire now, Bonnie, you should accept it. You walk under the sun because of that," he motioned to a narrow silver bangle around Bonnie's wrist, with small topaz stones creating a Celtic pattern across it, "but you belong in the shadows. You may have fed to keep walking, but you've yet to live. And this ridiculous idea of yours, getting your powers back, it's just keeping you from accepting who you are now, Bonnie Bennett." He didn't set off to give her any advice. Kol was still planning to make her miserable. But while he had always held Bonnie the Witch in high regard, he had even more respect for her now, for making the choice he'd never expected from her.

"Ever since I realized that I have magic, Kol, I stopped being human first, I became a witch," the words escaped her lips before Bonnie could stop herself, "now something is missing. A huge part of myself, the most important one. And if I'm going to live for all eternity, I'm going to do it right."

Something changed in Kol's smile. For a second, Bonnie thought that she saw a trace of respect in his gaze. He swallowed the last of his bourbon, motioned for the bartender to come over, looked the young man straight in the eye and whispered a few words. He then picked up Bonnie's backpack from the dark hardwood floor and put one of the straps over his shoulder. "Ready to go, love?"

Bonnie slid down from the stool and, when Kol turned around, put a fifty dollar bill on the counter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kol didn't want to wonder about Bonnie. Right now, he tried to drink his way to Russia and tear some crazy vampires into pieces. He remembered the pleasant taste of warm blood, almost hot even, in the icy frost of winter. Sadly, spring was practically over at this point, and there was no way he was going to let Bonnie roam around the country until late October when the snows usually came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter got out of hand. Again, not the most exciting part, but it is needed to push the story forward.  
> 2\. I used a couple of Kol's actual quotes in the dialogue.

Bonnie, as it turned out, had a deep interest in planes. Kol didn't get people who preferred standing in front of the panoramic windows and staring at the unmoving metal cans with wings to drinking complimentary scotch in the first class lounge. He took his eyes of Bonnie, who's been looking at the light-blue Boeing they were about to board, and focused on his drink. At this point, she must have seen the advantages of using compulsion. It took them less than ten minutes to get from the entrance to the lounge, with both the security and passport control. No one was interested in the enormous old book with a leather cover and strange symbols that Bonnie carried in her backpack, no one cared about Kol's passport, which, unlike Bonnie's, was obviously fake. Everything was free and available at the tip of their fingertips.

But Bonnie didn't even notice. She stood at the window, her gaze firmly locked on the plane. Kol put his unfinished drink on the table and got up from the low armchair. He took a step towards her, then turned around, finished his scotch and started towards her, again.

"Could you explain what the hell is so interesting about this bloody thing?" he asked.

Bonnie didn't react for a few moments. It was unusual, seeing how she always flinched at the sight of him. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Never mind," Kol smiled, "deep in thought, I gather?"

Bonnie nodded and turned away to look out the window, again. Apparently, she wasn't exactly looking at the airplane, but instead, staring blankly into space. Kol, on the other hand, went back to the ridiculously uncomfortable armchair that he was occupying before. But now, he didn't turn away from her.

He wondered, what made her feed after she was turned. What happened to her to make her choose becoming something she's hated for years, an abomination, really, instead of death, and an entirely noble one at that. He wondered, who turned her. Who was the vampire that took what they thought was pity on a dying girl they didn't even know? Did they stay with her or just left her to fend for herself? She always said that Caroline taught her, which meant that the one who turned her walked away, without a second thought, probably.

Kol didn't want to wonder about Bonnie. Right now, he tried to drink his way to Russia and tear some crazy vampires into pieces. He remembered the pleasant taste of warm blood, almost hot even, in the icy frost of winter. Sadly, spring was practically over at this point, and there was no way he was going to let Bonnie roam around the country until late October when the snows usually came.

He was still deep in thought when they were sitting down in the first class cabin. Kol and Bonnie were seated together, in the central aisle, and she didn't waste time, putting her backpack into the storage locker and settling in with another thick book.  It had that insanely bright yellow cover which pointed to it being one of the books "for dummies," probably the one about learning conversational Russian in a couple of weeks. She started flipping through the book with incredible speed, but Kol managed to get her attention with a quiet cough before anyone else had noticed. Bonnie nodded and slowed down.

"Thanks," she mouthed and went back to her book.

She wouldn't be able to converse with anyone in Russian, putting this little time into her studies. But that, again, would give Kol more power during the trip, and he wasn't one to say no to power.

No matter how hard Kol tried, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that something else was pushing him to the witch and that ridiculous plan of hers. It almost felt like something or someone was tugging on his sleeve, pulling him towards Bonnie. And he wasn't gone far enough anymore to ignore and pretend not to recognize the feeling that refused to stay in the back of his head and kept moving dangerously close to his not beating heart. The last thing left in Pandora's box. The only thing that mattered.

It took Kol little to no alcohol to start talking to Bonnie, and he most definitely didn't like that.

"I miss it too, you know," he muttered, but that was enough to get Bonnie's attention. She didn't look up from the book but stopped flipping through the pages. "None of my siblings had tapped into their power. I was a bit of a child prodigy. I loved it. I loved the power, I loved the rush... and then, when we turned, I lost it all. Went through a bit of a-"

"Dark period?" Bonnie finished for him, shutting her book with a loud thud. "I figured that much. Back in New Orleans, you've been spending an alarming amount of time with or around the witches."

"I do hold them in high regard," Kol grinned at her. "You weren't kidding when you said that you did your homework, huh."

Bonnie smiled right back. "I thought it would take much longer, actually, and I wasn't in a rush. But it turned out fine; I only needed a couple of weeks to get the sense of what your life there is like."

Kol's smile went away as fast as it appeared before. He knew what Bonnie was talking about. To his family, he was a homicidal screw-up brother daggered one too many times, to the witches he was an obsessed vampire. Kol had no purpose and no real power there. He didn't like to admit it, but Bonnie's request made him feel, well, valued if nothing more. She came to him because for once he had exactly what she needed. Ruthless and strong, she said. Bored out of his mind.

"Hey, I'm sorry. You're not exactly my friend, but I didn't want to cause any offense this early into our trip," her words cut into his train of thought. Kol turned to look at her. What the hell was going on?

He didn't want to seem grateful, but in a sense, he was. "Was I the first one you asked for help with this?"

"Well, Sylvia was the first one to help me, essentially. I mean, she'd spent an insane amount of time going through those old journals and dusty books, looking for any evidence that this rumor could be real."

Kol shook his head and motioned, attracting the flight attendant's attention. He asked for any hard liquor they had, preferably scotch and turned back to his companion, who, surprisingly, asked for the same, whatever it happened to be.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it, love."

She sighed and put the book into one of the sleeves on the partition. "Look, I understand the reason why you came with me. I knew you would. Well, I was about sixty or seventy percent sure that you'll say yes. Another twenty were reserved for you killing me on the spot. And what was left went to you laughing me out of that bar in San Francisco," she sighed, giving her attention to the returning flight attendant for a second, "thank you," she said when the tiny glass bottle of scotch and a heavy glass appeared on the fold-out table before her. Soon, the same set was given to Kol. "I didn't exactly want to ask you, for obvious reasons," he snickered at that, "but while I knew asking any of my friends would've been pretty damn pointless, I started thinking about other people I know. Enemies and such included," she smiled, "I've had a lot of enemies, Kol, and not all of them are dead. And after careful consideration, and trust me, I've made about a hundred pros and cons lists, I knew that you're the one to bet on."

Kol reached over to her table, took the bottle from her, poured the entirety of it into the glass and gave it back to Bonnie. He then picked up his glass, reaching out to the girl in the seat next to his. She squinted at him, and gently, barely making any sound, touched the rim of her glass to his.

 

\------

Both were pretty much silent until they got to Vladivostok. Bonnie, once again, was engrossed in her book, and Kol kept drinking, letting go of the thoughts that have been bothering him since he saw Bonnie Bennett sipping her spicy tomato juice in the St. Regis bar back in San Francisco. Thanks to his compulsion, they had no problems at the airports, again, even though Kol was tempted to let Bonnie talk her own way through passport control. But he didn't. He also got her a sweater back in Seoul, because the girl was ridiculously unprepared. And when they landed in Vladivostok, Bonnie looked out the window and didn't hesitate to put on the sweater. She wasn't going to be cold, but this addition helped her fit in with the crowd.

Soon, they were in the center of the city. Kol kept looking around, noting the little, but noticeable, changes. Bonnie's eyes grew wider as she took in a place, people that had little in common with the part of the world she knew. Kol was happy to see that a small cafe he'd been to a couple of times before, was still open. He led Bonnie to a 5-story building with an unpretentious neon black-and-white sign over the heavy oak door. Kol did his best to read the words on it but failed to understand what it said. True gentleman, he held the door for Bonnie and followed her into the basement space, where the cafe was operating. It looked more like a generic pub, with football memorabilia hanging on the walls, old wooden furniture and a long bar counter with flat-screen TVs hanging over it. There weren't a lot of empty tables to choose from, so Kol led Bonnie to the first one he saw and deemed comfortable enough.

" _Govorish po-anglyiski?_ " he asked the waiter who was soon at their table, greeting them with a hint of a smile. It dropped, as soon as he heard the question.

"No, one second," the man put his pointer finger up and walked away. His accent was thick and musical.

Bonnie and Kol didn't have to wait long until the man's replacement showed up. The girl was tiny and very thin, the dark circles were emphasizing her already deep set eyes, but her smile was broad and genuine.

"What can I do for you tonight?" she asked, noticing and picking up the forgotten menus.

"Hi, darling," Kol grinned, "can we get two vodkas, some herring, pickles and garlic rye bread?"

"Sure," the girl smiled right back, glancing at Bonnie to make sure she was complacent with Kol's order. She opened her mouth to say something, but then, unsure of herself, turned back to Kol.

"I'm sorry, I can't remember what 'rye' means. Is it, uhm, dark bread? Black?"

Kol nodded. "Yeah, you used to have this special dark bread, it was almost black, with lots of spices-"

The server didn't let him finish, her smile coming back as wide as ever. " _Borodinskyi_ , yes. We still have that, and the recipe is from way back in the day. You're going to love it." She turned back to Bonnie again, "would you like something to eat? Or something else to drink?"

Bonnie shook her head and stayed silent. Kol, on the other hand, touched the girl's arm, requesting her attention. "The vodka... just keep it coming until I say otherwise, okay?"

He sounded a bit condescending and their waitress smiled, again, but couldn't hide that little bit of disappointment and annoyance she felt because of his tone. Kol nodded when she turned around to go and place their order. She was good at hiding her emotions, but it was easy for a vampire, an Original at that, to notice subtle changes in microexpressions.

When it came to drinking, Bonnie didn't keep up with him at all. She took half a shot every time he downed a full one, pushed the herring around its plate and kept smelling that one little piece of rye bread she picked up a long time ago. Kol, on the other hand, was having the best time. After a while, the extraordinary warmth that the ice-cold drink was capable of bringing up, was spreading all over his body. He started joking and laughing, asked for the channel to be changed and enjoyed yelling at Arsenal players, loud and obnoxious. He managed to notice that Bonnie had stopped drinking altogether, that the bar patrons started to leave, the concerned looks the girl, their server, was throwing their way. He motioned for her to come over and took her by the hand. She didn't even flinch.

He looked straight into her eyes.

"We've paid in full and gave you a generous tip. You're going home a thoroughly pleased woman."

Bonnie looked up at the girl, surprised. For the first time since she found Kol in San Francisco, she was the first one to react. The girl he was compelling wasn't relaxing, the way Kol had seen it happen millions of times over the centuries, she was laughing.

"Oh, come on, this shit is not going to work on me," she grinned. She looked around, waved to someone who was leaving, checked to see that no one was calling for her or needed anything. And then, she pulled up the chair from the table next to theirs and sat down. Bonnie straightened up, and Kol gulped down what she had left in her shot glass.

"The name's Natasha," the girl said, "and let me tell you about my favorite type of tea."

Kol laughed. "Let me guess. It's any tea, as long as you brew some vervain with it."

Natasha nodded. Her accent all but disappeared. "You should watch your back, guys," she said. "I like you, and we like tourists and foreigners, but our vampire population is going to be interested in you two. They are, how can I put it, into conspiracies, and they like to control what's going on around here. At least, in the supernatural community. And they have one way of dealing with those they deem suspicious. Well, three, in fact. There's decapitation. Or burning. Or a stake to the heart. They mostly enjoy decapitation, though. And they like to do everything with their bare hands."

Kol wondered about the girl. She smelled like a regular human. An ordinary human that had run-ins with monsters, probably. With crazy-ass Russian vampires. And she survived. However did she manage to do so, Kol had respect for her apparent ingenuity.

"We're not going to stay here, Natasha," Bonnie started, "we need to visit a couple of villages across the country, so we're not going to be here long. But still, thank you for bothering with us."

Kol didn't like that. He wasn't planning on drinking from the girl anymore, but he had no doubts that she needed to be killed. Too much information in a human's head was never a good thing. But thanking a girl who's neck he was planning on breaking soon? That was too much.

"Yaganovo," Bonnie continued, "do you know it?"

"Oh, sure," Natasha nodded, "it's just a few kilometers from the village where my grandmother used to live. I went there every summer until I turned eighteen. My friends and I used to walk to Yaganovo a lot, they had a store that didn't bother with age restrictions and sold us all the alcohol we wanted. There aren't many people left living in the villages full time, though. What exactly are you looking for?"

Kol shook his head, but Bonnie took the lead on this one. "Is Maria Evgenievna still living there?"

Natasha scratched her head, "I'm not sure. I don't remember anyone by that name, but I wasn't there much, and our attention was far from those who lived in that village. It's not that far, though, I'd say, a couple of hours running for a vampire. How many kilometers per hour can you do, though? I always wondered."

"Thank you, darling," Kol smirked, leaving her question hanging in the air, "how much do we owe you?"

He pushed two orange bills into her hand, knowing perfectly well he was leaving her a hundred-percent tip. This was a show of good faith, hoping that she would keep her mouth shut if he didn't end up breaking her neck for some reason.

He and Bonnie were walking up the stairs when Natasha's voice stopped them before they opened the door to step out on the street. She rushed over and stayed at the bottom of the stairs.

"You're going to need blood, probably. If you hit any hospitals, please stay away from the government ones. They barely have enough blood for transfusions to actually keep people alive. But there is a private clinic, not far from here. It's run by some of the worst people in this city." Natasha extended her hand to Bonnie, pushing a sheet of paper she tore out of her notebook. There were an address and a simple map of the route to the clinic, a cross indicating the exact location.

"Thank you," said Bonnie, smiling at the girl, who was already going back to fill up the condiments and marry half-empty ketchup bottles.

There weren't a lot of people walking the streets as they were following the route to the private clinic.

"You're not going to kill her, Kol," Bonnie said, "she was nice and she helped us out."

"She saw us. And most importantly, she saw me. Can you be sure that she didn't figure out who I am? No one needs to know that an Original is back in Russia. None of us made good impressions here. And while I'm pretty damn sure that I'll be okay no matter what, it's you who should be very concerned. And very scared. Let's say," he gestured, "a hundred vampires get together and attack us. Are you sure none of them will get to you before I manage to kill every single one? They don't live like they are immortal, Bonnie," Kol continued after a short tension-filled pause, "they live like they are invincible. And you know better than most that no vampire, even an Original, is invincible. But imagine that someone who's attacking you has this mindset. You chop off their legs, they crawl to you. You take off their arms, and they use their teeth to bite off your head."

"You are not going to kill her, Kol," Bonnie cut him off, took a left turn following Natasha's map. The clinic's three-story building stood out, a splash of white against the grey buildings surrounding it.

Getting in wasn't hard. Kol stood guard on the street while Bonnie sped down the corridors, following the strong aroma of blood. She broke the lock on the walk-in refrigerator, took a small cooler from one of the shelves and filled it with bags with the dark liquid that, in the inadequate lighting, looked almost black.

She jumped out the window and landed next to Kol, blue cooler with a white lid in her hands, fingers tightly gripping the handle. Kol's mocking smile changed into a predatory one, his eyes were dark, and his stance was different. He looked like he was ready to leap.

"We've got company, love," he almost growled, "still think I should've left the girl alive?"

To be honest, he didn't think she was the one who gave them up. They weren't exactly hiding and breaking into the clinic's blood bank was an action that could undoubtedly attract the attention of any number of local vampires. Still, he wanted to plant some doubt in Bonnie's mind.

But when he counted eighteen shadows coming towards them from behind the buildings and trees, he turned to grin at her. "That's what I'm talking about, Bennett. These fuckers are absolutely mental."

And when the first vampire came into the moonlight, Kol took off with what sounded like a roar. Bonnie was fast behind him, crashing into one of the attackers, hand in his chest, gripping the vampire's heart, just as she was about to pull it out from his ribcage and crush it in her fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You okay?" he sounded genuinely concerned. He wasn't, she thought. And then Bonnie felt herself being picked up, thrown over his shoulder and carried off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Bonnie's POV, a bit of fighting and just about enough backstory to go on.  
> 2\. I'm feeling a bit weird about the identity of the vampire who had changed Bonnie. Obviously, I know who he is and I'm sure that it should be him who turned her, but I'm wondering if Kol should find out.  
> 3\. I know where the story is going and I have a very rough outline of the plot in my head. I also have the final chapter almost finished. And while it's easier to pave the road when you know exactly where you are going, I'm terrified of hitting a roadblock. It's not going to happen anytime soon, but it might come to that. So if I'm not posting for a week or so (maybe even longer), be sure, I'm working on the story, at least on the parts that I'm able to write at that particular moment.  
> 4\. Most importantly I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who clicked on this story and read any of it.

When two people fight against eighteen, even if one of them has a black belt in karate, when planning to come out the fight alive, they should have a strategy. No matter how skilled of a fighter you are, a pair rarely has a chance to come out on top in a situation like this.

There was no strategy in what Bonnie and Kol were doing. At least, she thought, glancing around to find out who the next attacker would be, Kol's movements had an intense, animalistic grace to them. She, on the other hand, resembled an animal trapped in a circle of its natural enemies, frantic to get out of there alive, but barely holding on to any hope.

The first one went down smoothly, Bonnie thought. He didn't expect her to start the attack, but after his heart broke in Bonnie's hand, the momentum has been lost. Three vampires charged at her. Two of them were turned when they were around forty, but the girl looked much, much younger. Her gaze was the most vicious out of the three, but Bonnie stopped being surprised with that a long time ago.

She didn't pay much attention to what Kol was doing. After all, an Original would most definitely have been okay in a fight like this. He would've been perfectly fine fighting against thirty vampires, especially those who underestimated him. Bonnie, on the other hand, was in trouble. She dropped down on the ground to avoid a couple of blows aimed at her head. While falling, she grabbed and tore out a kneecap, and upon landing on the floor, twisted the ankle of another one of the men attacking her. Crawling, it took her less than a second to get to the temporarily disabled vampires and plunge both her hands into their chests. And almost at the same time, she felt her hair being pulled with an insane force. The vampires' hearts still in her hands, she squished them and threw what was left over her head, hoping to distract the girl for a second. It worked, and Bonnie, freed from the tight grip on her hair, sped to a tree near one of the houses. She noticed at least five bodies on the ground and avoided them with caution.

Bonnie grabbed and broke the branch closest to the ground. What a ridiculous decision it was to go to a country with a very hostile vampire community without any weapons. But then, Kol had been her weapon. She didn't think she'd need more. And she most definitely couldn't have predicted that they would be attacked the first day. If she managed to get out of this alive, if Kol managed to get to her fast enough, Bonnie thought, as she was, once again, dragged by the hair across the pavement, she was going to be smarter. She wasn't going to be unprepared.

" _Grebannie turisti_ ," the girl was saying, getting Bonnie closer and closer to the clinic, where the small cooler with blood was still untouched, " _vi shto, doma u sebya? Nikakigo uvazheniya._ "

Bonnie was fighting back, a branch still in her hand, and she didn't understand much of what her attacker was saying. There was something about tourists, home and lack of respect. When they got across the street, to the clinic, with only street lanterns left to light the space, every window dark and silent, Bonnie felt hesitation in her attacker and reached up to stab the girl's hip with the branch. Gaining momentum, Bonnie managed to get out of her grip and stand up, feet firm on the ground. The girl took the stick out of her hip, threw it away and charged. Two of her blows, Bonnie was able to avoid, but the third one, a punch in the gut, threw her across the street, slamming into someone else's back.

"Bloody hell, darling, could you be a little more careful?" came Kol's startled voice. She felt him move from under her and heard another ribcage break. And then she listened to the girl's voice. This time, she was speaking English as she was walking up to Bonnie.

"You don't have respect," she hissed, "you come here, you rob our clinic, you take our blood..." She was still advancing, agonizingly slow and making the worst mistake of her life and her life after death. The mistake that was going to get her killed. For good. "You are guests. Ask permission-"

She didn't finish, Kol's teeth tearing out her throat, stopping the flow of words spoken with a strong accent.

It didn't sound like anything Bonnie's heard on TV before.

She lay on the ground, stunned, looking past her hands, covered in blood up to the elbows. In a second, Kol's face appeared above her.

"You okay?" he sounded genuinely concerned. He wasn't, she thought. And then Bonnie felt herself being picked up, thrown over his shoulder and carried off.

"Stay here," Kol said, leaving her in the thick bushes behind one of the apartment buildings. She heard him run away and come back, dragging something substantial on clanking metal wheels. She pushed some branches down to see what was going on. There was a large trashcan in the middle of the quiet street, a canister of petrol next to it. Kol, moving with incredible speed, was collecting what was left of the vampires and putting them in. When he was done, he poured petrol over the bodies and blood left on the asphalt. In another second, the fire was taking over. Bonnie let go of the branches and looked around. Only at that moment did she notice the cooler with blood and her backpack next to her.

As Kol was watching the fire, eyes bright, a bloody grin spread across his mouth, she took off the ruined sweater, found a long-sleeved shirt in her backpack and put it on. With clean parts of the sweater, she wiped off the blood from her jacket, worried that the worn-out leather had already absorbed enough of it to ever completely come out. She moved some things around and managed to fit the cooler into her bag, closed it, only barely avoiding breaking the zipper. With a bloody sweater in hand, she walked out on the street and joined Kol, throwing the piece of clothing into the fire. 

"Thank you," she said quietly.

His response started with a smile. "My pleasure. And trust me, I mean it."

Bonnie chuckled, shock still holding her body and mind in a trans-like state.

"These people are weird," Kol continued, glancing around. "When we started, half the windows were lit up, and a couple of seconds into the fight, they were dark. Imagine something like this happening back home. Half the building would be out on the street, cellphones at the ready."

Bonnie shook her head. "It's dark outside. When you're looking out from a window, standing in a room where the light is on, you can't see anything that's happening outside. The glass only reflects what's in the room. But when you turn it off..."

"Then," Kol concluded, "we need to go. Where's the blood?"

Bonnie swatted her hand over her full and misshapen backpack.

"Did you by any chance have a British nanny when you were a kid? And did you, by any chance, steal her carpet bag and fashion it into a backpack?"

She didn't respond but failed to hide a smile. Hunger was growing stronger, and the fire went even higher. She watched a couple of windows light up, people probably reaching for their phones to call the fire department.

"We need to go," Kol repeated, and in a matter of seconds, they were running away, moving towards the edge of the city.

 

\------

Bonnie and Kol only stopped in the middle of a small forest near Vladivostok. She dropped her backpack onto the ground, sat on a fallen log and took out the cooler. Kol flipped the lid open a grabbed a blood bag first. He tore into it, dark veins forming around his eyes and fangs popping out when he was already gulping the liquid down. Bonnie felt the same changes happen to her face and reached for a bag. She didn't check the blood type, she didn't have a favorite. It all tasted the same to her, beautiful and horrible.

She never saw herself in the mirror when hunger was taking over her body and mind. She didn't know what she looked like with fangs pressing on her lower lip, with darkened eyes, glowing with desire. She bit into the bag carefully and sucked out some of the thick, cold liquid.

"This is shit," Kol said, throwing the bag away, "nothing more anticlimactic than chilled blood." He looked at Bonnie, and something in his eyes changed.

"What?" she asked, annoyance apparent in her voice, and took another sip from the blood bag.

"You've been a vampire four years now, right?" he asked, "I've never met a young one so controlled about their feeding habits. After a fight like this, you should be gulping this shit down, unable to stop."

Bonnie shrugged. She didn't have anything to say to that. It wasn't easy, controlling the feeling that was always present in the back of her mind. But she did it because there was no other way.

Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a bright flash of light. Kol looked at the photo he just took, seemingly pleased with the result.

"Hey!" Bonnie stood up from the log, "what the hell do you think you are doing?" she was reaching for his phone, but Kol already had it in his pocket.

"You look hot when you're hungry," he smiled.

Bonnie waved him off. "I'm pretty sure we need to make some stakes. I was almost completely useless back there-"

"So you want to give your attackers another way to kick your ass and send you to the more traditional afterlife? Have you ever even fought anyone before tonight, love?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but Kol kept talking. "As a vampire. You don't have the power of a hundred witches or your spells or Emily or Sheila to help you. You're just a vampire, a young and inexperienced one at that, and you certainly don't drink enough blood to know the real amount of strength you have inside you now. I don't need to go up against twenty vampires with a stake or a flamethrower. If you do that, on the other hand, you're going to be in more danger than your attackers."

He didn't say anything that wasn't true, and no matter how much it pained her to agree with Kol, she had no choice but to do just that. "Should we get us a flamethrower, then?"

He grinned. "I don't trust you not to burn yourself with one."

Bonnie was silent for a minute. She sat down again, finished the blood bag, put it back into the cooler, making a mental note of disposing of those whenever they had the chance to do it discreetly. Then, it was back in her backpack, and a detailed map of the region was in her hands. She looked at it for a long moment, her lips moving without a sound. "I'm pretty sure we're here," she pointed at the green section, motioning for Kol to come closer. He sat down on the same log. "The village is not that far. We can walk for a bit, and run the rest of the way when the sun starts to rise."

Out of everything that changed in her life since Bonnie had become a vampire, from eternal youth to heightened senses, what she was fond of was the ability to run so fast, her silhouette was impossible to make out. Back home, she ran across states, alongside the coastline, jumped over trees and this alone brought her some peace of mind. Bonnie ran all the way from New Orleans to San Francisco, only needing a few breaks to hunt and feed and restore her energy. That was the downside, though, the amount of blood she needed to consume to keep up the pace. But they had a cooler full of blood, small but enough to get them across the entire country. She was sure that it wasn't going to be the only source of blood for Kol, and Bonnie didn't want to think about it.

And as she was running across the forest, then the fields and then jumping over narrow rivers, Kol close behind her, she let her mind wander.

This was ridiculous. Everything about her situation was insane. A witch turned into a vampire, against her will, there was no question about it. She was on the floor, drifting off, for good, this time. She was content with how it happened at that point but wasn't happy with what her short life ended up being. It was a series of decisions made to protect others, losses that broke her down, powers that had built her back up. Mistakes that destroyed her, again and again. A selfless little witch from a small town in Virginia, a girl who fucked up over and over again, a girl who saved the world more than one time. A girl who kept her friends alive and lost her family in the process.

She had grown up in the end. Bonnie started to look after herself first, decided what she wanted her life to be. She dated guys that weren't cheating on her with ghosts of their dead girlfriends, who didn't die and who she didn't have to bring back to life. Who weren't cursed and who weren't pretending to like her, because they wanted to get to Elena or to use her powers for their own gain. She even fell in love, once, but then her best friend called, scared out of her mind. A witch was after her, for some unknown reason, and somehow, after years of little to no contact, Bonnie was still the one they called for help.

She remembered finding herself in an abandoned building. It looked like a mall that was never even built completely. It had the base and walls and floors, and missing a roof over the top level, covered in graffiti, some wonderful some crooked and uneven. It looked like it's been there for years, standing still, abandoned and forgotten. The witch whose name Bonnie never learned, died under the weight of the walls Boonie had brought down on her. But with the last push of a spell, the witch responded with what felt like half a building dropping down on her opponent. Bonnie tried to push the rubble off, to crawl out, but her power was all but drained, and her legs wouldn't move. So, after a while of the fight that she was bound to lose, she gave up and closed her eyes for what she thought was the last time. Bonnie accepted her fate, but she didn't want to die. She had a boyfriend who she loved, waiting for her to come back from her trip, in a tiny studio apartment they rented together. Both their names were on the lease. He told her he loved her every single day when she woke up and went to bed. When she was leaving the apartment and coming back to him. People say that words lose their meaning when you repeat them one too many times. Bonnie didn't agree with that anymore. As darkness began to overtake her, all she wanted to hear was someone saying "I love you" to her, one more time.

When her 'savior' appeared, she had yet to stop breathing but was too far gone to be healed by any amount of vampire blood. Bonnie never figured out if he wanted to save her or to turn her. In any case, his blood was in her system but wasn't fast enough to start the killing process. She died with it in her body, woke up the next morning, in an expensive hotel, with a charmed bracelet on her wrist and a compelled human by her bedside.

A sudden burn of sharp pain stopped Bonnie in her track. She felt her right shoulder dislocate and screamed.

"We're here," Kol said, staring right at her. He put his hand on her shoulder and another one on her arm. With a single fast move, he put her back together. And it was just as painful.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When they got to that woman, if she indeed existed, he was going to pay attention to whatever way it was she was going to use to get Bonnie back in touch with her magic. And then he was going to go to New Orleans and find himself a witch that would do the same for him. He didn't want Bonnie, or anyone else, to know about his plans, and when he got his powers back, he'd tell Nik to find himself a piece of White Oak and fall on it. He'd never have to do his brother's bidding again; he'd turn Klaus' daggers into butterflies and watch them fly away. He'd travel the world again, and he'd be the happiest homicidal maniac in the world. Because the one thing he lost that truly mattered will be there, again. And maybe, one day, centuries later, he'd find Bonnie Bennett and ravish her, plant a kiss over every part of her body and fuck her senseless with both of them floating over the mountains. If she let him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. There was supposed to be a fight here. I'm giving it up to replace it with a more exciting and fun altercation in the next chapter.  
> 2\. I haven't seen much of TO, but from what I've read, they are making him more human and less of a maniac. I don't know if the way he explains himself (to himself) in this chapter has much to do with his current character development, but I do feel that he's been climbing out of the pit he dug himself into since his stint on the Other Side (back in the TVD days). Also, I feel that Kol is a victim of circumstances and his family's choices. I'm sure that back when he was human, and practicing magic, he was the happiest of them all. All of the Originals had something taken from them when Esther performed the spell, and I am biased, but I feel that Kol lost the most, and that loss might have pushed him over the edge. 'Dark period', hah.

The first village they stopped by was all but eternally silent. Most of the houses were dark and cold and abandoned by their owners. Out of around seventy homesteads, only three were occupied. One of the families still left there brought down the fences that were separating their section of the land from the three neighboring ones and extended their large garden into what constituted as a small farm. The other two didn't bother with farming, exactly. From what Kol and Bonnie observed, they left for jobs in nearby towns in the morning and came back late at night. While most of the village, apart from one house, was empty, they looked around and made sure that the woman they've been searching for wasn't there.

Just to be sure, Kol compelled a relatively young married couple, and from the girl, whose English skills were pretty much non-existent, found out that the village has been crumbling down for years now. It was only a matter of time before she and her husband were going to leave for Vladivostok, and soon the other families might follow suit. And because she's been living there for her entire life and has never heard of anyone called Mariya Evgenievna, both Kol and Bonnie were ready to go on. Before they went, though, the girl suggested that they find out the surname of the person they were looking for.

Kol glared at Bonnie, who went from being upset to absolutely shattered and a bit mad at herself.

"I thought to check for the surname," Bonnie explained when they were walking across one of the fields surrounding the village, heading to the forest they ran out of at dawn. The sun has already set, but darkness was no trouble for a vampire's sight. "I didn't look close enough, surely, and after we found enough evidence to support this legend and I went to spy on you in New Orleans, I completely forgot about it."

Kol regarded her attentively. He opened his mouth, a hundred snarky comments at the ready, but something entirely different came out. "Don't be too hard on yourself, darling. Her name probably wouldn't be in any public record, and considering the state of this village, it won't be that hard to find her, even without a surname."

Bonnie's startled look shut him up before he could stop this ridiculous display of concern himself. She sighed, and the rest of the walk to the forest was completely silent. When they reached the edge of it, Bonnie took the cooler with blood her backpack, sat down on the damp grass, opened it up and gave Kol one of the bags. Again, he ripped into it immediately, even though the hunger wasn't as present and apparent and pressing as before, right after the fight back in the city.

"What now?" Bonnie asked, still staring at her boots.

Kol snickered. "Hey, I'm just a bodyguard here. You're the one with the shitty plan. I reckon it's your job to tell me what's next."

He looked down at her, considered his position and sat down next to Bonnie, silently cursing the lack of comfort he's experienced since arriving here. Before, Kol mused, back when he was here with his family, they stayed at the most luxurious houses, fed on the prettiest girls and traveled in the most comfortable carriages available then. Even when he came here alone, a short time after he came back to the world of the living, it was all about the best hotels and exclusive clubs. And now he was subjected to running across forests and spending his time surrounded by rotting houses in dying villages. The only good thing to happen since their arrival was the fight. And while it added some excitement to an otherwise dull trip, Kol was a bit worried that it wasn't going to be all fun and scuffles as he'd expected. Even more so, he was apparently growing to enjoy the company of Bonnie Bennett. For all his plans to make the trip miserable for her, he has somehow ended up giving her advice and even supporting her emotionally during this whole ordeal. And it's only been few days since they met up back in San Francisco.

There was an explanation to this, and Kol was sure of what it was. Despite most of his family and acquaintances labeling him a psychotic maniac, Kol had an excellent idea of who he was. He has had a long time to figure it out, after all. It was all about the magic, the chance of her getting it back. Which meant that there was a chance that he could get it back, too.

Magic was his calling back in the day, he was sure of it. Until another sort of magic took his power away from him. None of his siblings felt the same way, none of them knew what it was like to lose it. He went on a fucking rampage, spanning centuries, not just because he was a vampire or a psychopath, but because he no longer had the most important thing in his life. And then, after a century of feeling empty and not complete, an ex-witch from Mystic Falls, a town standing on the same piece of land he was born on, the place he hated now, came to him for help and, unknowingly, gave him hope. And it was real hope, Kol was sure of it because no matter what he'd said about Bonnie since meeting her years ago, he knew perfectly well that she was not stupid. Sometimes reckless, sure, but not unintelligent. If she didn't believe that this little rumor was real, she wouldn't have planned a trip to Russia of all places, and most definitely wouldn't have come to him for help.

"We'll go back to Vladivostok, take a train to Ekaterinburg and figure it out from there," he said, offering her what little blood he had left in the bag. Bonnie refused. "Look at it this way. We had three places to go to; now we have two. And there's a fifty percent chance we're going to find that lady in the next village."

She seemed to perk up a bit. "Wouldn't renting a car be a bit more convenient?"

"Car rentals here are shit. And overpriced. And I bet you'd want to pay for it," he laughed, "the roads are even worse. Trust me, you're going to spend more time pushing some piece of shit vehicle out of ditches than actually driving it."

"We're taking a train, then," Bonnie smiled, turning her head to look at him.

 

\------

They ran most of the way back to Vladivostok, even across the city to the train station, since there weren't any people on the streets. They reached it just before dawn and got the tickets right away since a cashier was working the night shift.

"Five days? Are you serious? We're going to be crammed in a tiny compartment for five fucking days?!" Bonnie shouted at him when they left the station, walking to a hotel next to it. "Can't we just fly over there?"

"We could. But it's going to be a very comfortable compartment for two, with a private bathroom and shower," Kol was amused with her cussing, "this is a huge country, and you're probably not going to come back here for a while, you might as well enjoy the experience."

Bonnie snorted and started taking broader steps to reach the hotel as fast as possible.

And at the reception desk, she looked like smoke will soon be coming out of her ears.

"I'm sorry, miss, but we only have one double room left. The beds can be pushed apart to different sides of the room if that's the problem," the girl said, seemingly shrinking under Bonnie's gaze. Compulsion, which she refused to learn, would've helped there. Kol stepped in, looking into the administrator's eyes.

"Don't worry, you're doing great. We'll take the room, but please make sure that the beds are pushed apart before we go up." He lightly tapped the girl's shoulder and then took Bonnie's hand into his own, as the girl was putting the false information Kol provided into the system and making a call to make sure the room was ready for them. "Look, I understand that it's not a perfect situation. But we're here, in this hotel, because you would've been a total drag if I talked our way into a suit at Hyundai."

Bonnie took a deep breath and looked back up at Kol. "I thought it was a car."

He smiled and resisted the urge to put his arm around her shoulder. Kol had no idea where that came from. "Don't be daft, love, I'm obviously talking about the hotel." He smiled and started up the stairs, motioning for Bonnie to follow, and she did.

The beds were far apart just about enough to tune out the presence of another person in the room, and the shades were dark enough to block out the light coming from outside.

Kol lay on the bed, listening to Bonnie's shallow breaths. They didn't precisely need sleep, and he could go a long time without it if he had a sufficient amount of human blood in his system. But he enjoyed it, once in a while. Made him feel more normal than he was.

When they got to that woman, if she indeed existed, he was going to pay attention to whatever way it was she was going to use to get Bonnie back in touch with her magic. And then he was going to go to New Orleans and find himself a witch that would do the same for him. He didn't want Bonnie, or anyone else, to know about his plans, and when he got his powers back, he'd tell Nik to find himself a piece of White Oak and fall on it. He'd never have to do his brother's bidding again; he'd turn Klaus' daggers into butterflies and watch them fly away. He'd travel the world again, and he'd be the happiest homicidal maniac in the world. Because the one thing he lost that truly mattered will be there, again. And maybe, one day, centuries later, he'd find Bonnie Bennett and ravish her, plant a kiss over every part of her body and fuck her senseless with both of them floating over the mountains. If she let him.

"Shit," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. He couldn't help but see sense in those thoughts. Missing their powers was one thing that has already connected them in Kol's mind. If she got her magic back, if he managed to do the same, they would become two of the most unique and most powerful creatures in the world. With something else connecting them at the very core.

He sat up and went to the mini-bar, silent and careful not to wake Bonnie from her restless sleep. He took out every little bottle containing hard liquor and put them in a neat row on the bedside table. After the first sip, his thoughts were wandering back to his own troubles, those that didn't include Bonnie Bennett. And there were enough of them. He didn't feel at home with his family, he hasn't been enjoying his little bloody rampages for years, now, and it might have even ended sooner had he not been daggered and kept in a coffin for such a long time. Did wonders for his psychotic side.

Kol didn't even know where it came from. He fell into a new vampire trap, saw every other being as either inferior to him and his siblings or just a source of nutrition. It stayed with him for the longest time, and doubts only came after what seemed to be his final death, when everything was collapsing around him, and nothing could be done to stop it. But Bonnie Bennett was there, too. In a strange and ridiculous way.  
"Shit," he whispered once again and picked up another tiny bottle. Back then, he enjoyed playing with Bonnie and her little friends, but still had a lot of respect for her. He always respected witches, though, and she seemed to be one of the strongest ones he'd ever encountered.

He looked over her small form under a thin blanket. She was going to get her powers back, and with her newfound grace, she was going to start glowing, again. He hadn't consumed enough alcohol to be thinking this. But this girl, little and fragile, compared to him at least, was indeed impressive. Even though she didn't exactly have a plan, she heard a rumor and proved it to be true. She went to a person she supposedly hated for help because he was her best bet. On what little information she had, Bonnie was moving forward the only way she could.

This woman, Mariya Evgenievna, she was supposedly about as old as any of the Original vampires. Some sources, Bonnie said, listed her as someone who came before them. But once again, these were journals, and people, even immortal ones, made mistakes. Kol didn't remember his siblings turning any old witches, but he couldn't be sure that he was right about it. And supposedly, she got her powers back a long time ago and had been keeping it private for centuries. But it's tough to keep such a secret when people who run into you, those of a supernatural kind, sense that something is different. They may not be sure of what this change signifies, but they feel it. And then they write about it, and after a while, if enough people talk about it, speculation becomes a legend. For some reason, this one did not.

Kol wasn't sure if he'd heard about it before. If he did, he wasn't paying attention, or just dismissed such a ridiculous story altogether. But on a bed no farther than a few feet from him, lay Bonnie Bennett, asleep and seemingly at peace, who heard it, believed it, found proof, however faint it was, and went after it. Who didn't have a 'dark period' after losing something essential to her, but went after a possibility of getting it back. She somehow managed to stay human, when every new instinct in her body has been telling her to stop being one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie sighed, pulling her legs up to her chest. _"I like this,"_ she said, mentally scolding herself right after the words left her mouth, _"being civil. I suspected you'd be especially nasty to me, but somehow, here we are. Sharing a tiny room. Traveling across a foreign country."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what happened with the plan I had for this story. The ending isn't going to change, but the middle part is all over the place, s**t.  
> Anyway, there's a cool OC set to appear in the second village, and we're going to play with some vampire lore over there. Can't wait!  
> Just need to get to it. (the next chapter will be enough to move Bonnie and Kol far enough along the plot to get to the second village)  
> THANK YOU to everyone who's reading this.

No matter how much the tickets for two places in a compartment in a premium carriage cost, it was far from comfortable. From what Bonnie had seen through the fogged up windows while they were walking down the platform, it was the best option possible. Apart from a plane, obviously. But then, this was still a new experience that had some potential to be educational at least, if Kol had been right about the view. Illuminators on the planes had nothing on much larger windows on the sides of the train. And through these windows, she watched people settling into their compartments. Most didn't even have partitions between the compartment and the corridor, but that fact didn't exactly seem to bother anyone. 

There were all kinds of people boarding the train. There were mothers with children of various ages, some relatively small groups of young people obviously traveling together and looking forward to drinking their way through half of the country. There were single men and large families, and railway workers with sour expressions on their faces were checking the tickets and not trying to help in any other way. Bonnie watched frail women drag huge bags onto the train.

Bonnie and Kol's traveling conditions were much better, but still far from perfect. Small compartment not much larger than those they have seen already, had a separate bathroom with a shower, which was nice. The staff was much more helpful, but still barely smiling. And the dining car was right next to theirs. It seemed like everything had been covered in worn-down red velvet, even the stiff bunks, of which there were four in the entire compartment. But Kol promised that they wouldn't have any close neighbors since he'd bought out the whole thing.

Bonnie threw her backpack on one of the bunks and Kol did just the same with his own bag. He sat down on the velvet-covered surface, kicked off his boots and pulled up his legs. Bonnie watched him cautiously for a few moments but then turned to look out the window.

There was no announcement when the old train started moving, and soon it was out of the city, going full speed, which was far from impressive. Bonnie pulled Emily's grimoire out of the backpack and turned her attention to one of the sections in the end. She liked reading it, still, even though none of the information in this book, hand-written by her ancestors, was useful to her anymore. For now, Bonnie corrected herself before she gave into the strong pull of despair she's been working hard to avoid ever since she was turned.

So Bonnie read, and read, and read. Half of the grimoire she has already memorized, all but word for word. She glanced at Kol from time to time, who seemed to be fully immersed in a bright paperback with a thick yellow line on the border, the one he'd bought in a kiosk next to the train station. Bonnie tried to make out the title, but failed miserably, seeing how the letters were not only Cyrillic but designed in a horrible font. Kol's reading speed was slow, which was to be expected since it wasn't a language he often used. He chuckled a few times but was mostly engrossed in the story.

Bonnie's attention flowed even further from the grimoire, as she began thinking about the situation they were in once again. Ever since she started looking for proof of this rumor, she's been feeling like a lowly police detective investigating a very cold and bizarre case. There were conspiracies and clues that contradicted themselves at one time or another, but after a while, she learned to see differences between made-up stories and actual evidence. But at times, she wasn't even sure of that. Sylvia used to brew a strange herbal mix in a large teapot, put honey in it and sit with Bonnie in her small kitchen, for hours on end, discussing their findings and looking for connections. She was good at it, putting things together and seeing sense in them. Bonnie's skeptical nature, on the other hand, made her doubt, and doubt in this was a sure way to depression. The only thing that helped was running, which was something Bonnie found on her own. She loved the resistance of air against her body, the buildings and mountains and fields around her moving at insane speed, with her eyes still catching every detail. This, she thought, was freedom, even if it was only attainable for a little while.

"That," Kol started, "that's what I'm talking about." He put the book on a fold-out table between their bunks and, suddenly moving with vampire speed, but with little of the grace they possessed, pulled down the upper half of their compartment's window. Fresh air burst in, and when Bonnie looked out the window, she couldn't help but smile. He promised a view and didn't disappoint. The sun was setting, and its brilliant orange was bringing out the pigment in every piece of colorful fabric in their compartment.

She saw hundreds of sunsets over the years, but very few of those were this far from any populated piece of land. Far away, across the vast field, where a narrow lake split the dense forest. And for a while, the sun, huge and fiery, was reflecting on its surface. Bonnie sighed and smiled, looking back at Kol. He was tapping his long thin fingers on the table, a familiar rhythm now stuck in Bonnie's head. She pressed her back against the velvet-covered wall, still looking out the window. It was getting relatively colder by the minute, but she didn't notice. The clatter of the wheels joined the gentle, but loud hum of an old engine the train has been running on, and Bonnie was fast to find some meditative quality in the sounds mashing together. Kol's gaze stayed on her for a while before a knock on the door brought the both of them out of this trance-like state. Bonnie stood up and reached for the latch, moving it to the right to open the door. A train conductor was outside, dressed in a perfectly pressed uniform. In the orange light of the sun, his dark navy vest and pants looked a bit out of place. Without even a hint of a smile, he started speaking.

"Vagon-restoran zakrivaetsya cheres chas, esli hotite est', sovetuyu potoropitsya," he didn't pay any attention to Bonnie's confused face, even though she understood some of the words. Kol took the lead on this one.

"Spasibo," he said, his accent far better than she would've expected or from what she heard from Kol during the last few days, "mi uzhe toropimsya."

The young man left their compartment without as much as a nod, satisfied that he's done as little as possible. From what Bonnie understood, she deduced that he was talking about the dining cart and them possibly being hungry. They were obviously not, but skipping meals wasn't right for keeping their true nature in secret. Natasha and people who probably witnessed their fight near a private clinic back in Vladivostok from the relative safety of their own homes didn't react the way Bonnie expected, which led her to believe that even regular humans in this country weren't as oblivious to the existence of supernatural creatures. Now she assumed that everyone knew, and that meant that they were supposed to be extra careful.

"Let's go then."

The dining car was almost empty. They sat at a small table next to one of the windows. Once again, Bonnie let Kol order for both of them, since it would have taken her an hour to sort through the dishes that were offered and chose a few to try.

Creamy pumpkin soup with toasted pumpkin seeds wasn't far from her comfort zone. It was hot, it was tasty and served with a large basket of all kinds of different bread. Pork and beef dumplings, called pelmeni, were served with a lot of thick sour cream, two eight-ounce glasses of beer and a couple of shots of vodka. With those, the waiter brought a small dish with an assortment of pickled vegetables. It seemed like he was playing a silent game with them. Bonnie didn't hear him utter a single word since they sat down. He listened, he nodded, he wrote down their order, never really saying anything and gracing them with what could barely constitute as a smile.

This time, Bonnie consumed almost all of the food brought to her. She didn't speak to Kol, and he didn't try to start a conversation with her, either. They ate and drank in silence, paid the bill and left as the dining car was closing for the night. This, Bonnie thought, must have been the reason why the conductor came over to their compartment.

"How am I going to sleep on this?" she asked herself, staring at the bunk, and couple pillows laying on the top one, and a thin, uneven mattress, which even rolled up, didn't look like it would add any comfort. There was also a sealed cellophane pack of supposedly fresh linens. She caught Kol's amused look and scoffed, pulling the mattress down on her bunk and trying to make her sleeping arrangments for the next few days as comfortable as possible. She saw Kol opening his book once again, while she was going to the tiny bathroom.

 

\-----

When she got back, he was lying on a fully made-up bunk, under the covers and still, engrossed in his book. Bonnie sat down on her side, unsure of what to do next. Why did she agree to go on a train? Why couldn't they hop on a plane and go from there? It would've been much faster and less awkward. And what was wrong with her, worrying about being uncomfortable around Kol, anyway? They weren't enemies anymore. If she felt something towards him a while back, it was anger with a bit of disgust mixed in. He was their enemy, Elena's enemy, he threatened Jeremy, he was an asshole, and he died. A few times, from what she gathered. She knew that he used to tap into his magic, that he was the only Mikaelson child to do so. But she didn't expect for the despair over losing his power to be the same for them, even if their reactions to it were vastly different. But then, people, or undead creatures, suffered similar things and dealt with them differently, this wasn't a new concept.

Bonnie thought about every vampire she'd forgiven over the course of her life back in Mystic Falls. She remembered her grandmother's trust in Stefan, in spite of everything he's done before. Surely, she had to know about the horrors he'd brought to the places he traveled to back in his Ripper days. Bonnie herself had forgiven Damon, even with consideration of all the indefensible things he's done. What was so different about the Original laying on his bunk across her? Every vampire she's met did horrible things, even those with fantastic support systems made of their friends and families.

Kol's voice pulled her out of these thoughts. Apparently, she's been staring at him absent-mindedly for a while now, which he didn't mind commenting on.

"Did you really never try to find a way to get it back?" she asked, letting his snark fly by all but unnoticed, "I mean, you've been alive for over a thousand years, that's a lot of time to run around the world and look for a way."  
He put his book aside and sat up on the bunk. "Come on, Bennett, did you really do your research? I've been running around with witches for four bloody centuries. I talked to shamans and lived with witches and sometimes even believed in what idiot charlatans were preaching, never looking further than a bag of coins under my coat. Then I was daggered by my lovely brothers, and other emotions took over."

Bonnie sighed, pulling her legs up to her chest. "I like this," she said, mentally scolding herself right after the words left her mouth, "being civil. I suspected you'd be especially nasty to me, but somehow, here we are. Sharing a tiny room. Traveling across a foreign country."

Kol opened his mouth, closed it as if the words he had ready didn't feel quite right. He looked out the window, mostly staring at his own reflection, as the night was dark, with only a few stars and moon visible outside.

"Look," he finally started, turning back to Bonnie, "I'm the worst of the worst, we can agree on that," she started to protest, but Kol put his hand up, stopping her from speaking at that time, "and I was planning to make you miserable for a while, but for some ridiculous reason it's turning out to be harder than expected. Maybe it's your belief in this little theory of yours, which isn't even a theory, really, but it's rubbing off on me."

He reached for Bonnie's backpack and pulled out the cooler, offering her a bag of blood, taking another one for himself. They weren't low on it, yet, but were going to have to hit another clinic in Ekaterinburg to make sure that the rest of their journey went smoothly, thought Bonnie, accepting Kol's offering. She felt her fangs extend and bit a small hole in the corner of the bag. Just like when she was human, blood was thick and had metallic aftertaste. She'd been fed vampire blood enough to remember the taste. Even in her memories, it wasn't right. It made her want to vomit. Now, a lot of things were different.

She sucked some of the blood from the bag and felt an immediate rush. It wasn't strong, but it was there. With a grimace, Kol put the empty bag back in the cooler.

"Okay, I have to be completely honest with you, Bennett," he said, "well, I don't have to, but I want to, whatever the ridiculous reason for it may be," he paused for a few seconds, then looked right at her, "I'm glad you came to me with this, and I'm glad that I agreed."

A few moments of comfortable silence between them was interrupted by a sudden noise coming from above. The window was still open, and Bonnie turned to it with growing concern. It sounded like something large and heavy dropped onto the roof of the train. She stood up before Kol was able to stop her, reached out to the still open window, it's metal frame vibrating under Bonnie's touch. At first glance, nothing seemed to be out of place, but then she noticed shadows, matching the train's speed.

"Down!" she heard Kol's scream as the window shattered, letting even more air into the small compartment. Bonnie felt shards of glass piercing her face, neck, and chest. And then, there was a hand grabbing at her shoulder, intent on pulling her off the train. Kol's fingers appeared on the assailant's wrist, crushing it into a mess of blood, flesh, and pieces of bone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something changed. The shadows stopped moving forward, but those on the ground kept up with the train's speed. Only one of the vampires seemed to be walking towards them, from Kol's side. The Original pushed Bonnie behind him and felt her back pressing against his, once again. She was making sure they weren't attacked from the other side. And when the advancing vampire came close enough that his features became easy to make out, Kol couldn't help, but laugh. "Now, this is an unexpected meeting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I suddenly remembered what happened to Stefan in the TVD finale, so I changed a few things in the previous chapters. This doesn't affect the story, though. (it's basically Stefan's name being swapped with Caroline's)  
> 2\. We're in the middle of the story right now. YAY! More chapters coming soon, very soon.  
> 3\. Again, THANK YOU for reading this. <3

Kol didn't expect the vampire whose hand he'd just destroyed to hold on to the window frame with all he had. He kept trying to climb in, growling, a crooked scowl shifting on his face. Kol had to use an unexpected amount of force to finally push him off the train. Outside, he saw more creatures running towards the railroad, easily matching the train's speed. They were steady on their course, and every single instinct in his body told Kol, that he and Bonnie were the targets. He turned to look at her, making sure she was okay. Some of the largest shards of blood-covered glass were already on the table, and she was working on pulling out more. Kol reached to help her, but she slapped his hand away.

"It's fine, just some minor discomfort and a lot of pain," she hissed, placing another piece of glass onto a growing pile on the table, "how many?"

Kol shrugged. "No idea. Looks like a horde from here, and they are," he looked outside, "closing in."

They didn't have many choices of what to do or where to go from there. Jumping off a train would place them at a huge disadvantage. For a couple of seconds, at least. And those few moments could be enough to take out Bonnie, for good. Staying in the compartment wouldn't work either. While it was hard to get to them right away, the attackers wouldn't be just coming through the window. There was a door which wouldn't even stop a human for more than a minute, and for all he knew, they could punch through the ceiling and the walls they shared with neighboring compartments.

"Love," he started, grabbing Bonnie's shoulders. Her body was pushing the rest of the glass out by itself, "we're going up."

Kol expected his traveling companion to yell, argue and disapprove. Instead, she moved to the window, climbed onto the fold-out table, and in a second, with just a few quick pushes and pulls, was out of the car. By the sound of it, she dragged herself onto the roof of the moving train.

Yep, that was why Kol agreed to go with her. To fight a shitload of insane Russian vampires on top of the moving train.

And when he joined Bonnie up there, he couldn't wait for the attackers to catch up. "Be careful," he said, "no matter what they do, I'm going to be fine. You, on the other hand, are in actual danger right now."

She snickered. "Eighteen vampires back in Vladivostok don't constitute as dangerous?"

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"Relatively," she shrugged, growing more and more serious. Kol noted the faint hint of a smile on her lips, turned his back to hers, and that was when the first few vampires jumped onto the train.

One was close enough for Kol to reach out and in less than a second, rip the heart out of the vampire's chest. He felt Bonnie move to face those that were coming from her side, but Kol didn't have even a spare second to help her.

It was a bloody mess. Less than a minute later, it seemed, he was covered in blood from head to toe. And he wasn't feeling even a hint of fatigue. Kol ducked, pushed, growled, tore bodies apart. A long time ago, this kind of encounter would bring him a different sort of satisfaction. During the fights, he was nothing but a killing machine. A very good one, at that. He still was, but there was one thing that was missing. In the heat of a battle, where he once felt the most powerful, the most confident, he didn't have it in him to laugh anymore. 

Kol looked around, finally able to spare a moment. Bonnie's relatively clumsy moves, her grace messed up with the push of air and an unusual setting, somehow threw her attackers off, and she was able to get rid of at least five of them. But there were more coming, shadows closing in on the train, dark figures appearing on the roof. One of those was lucky enough to get a couple of strong hits on Bonnie, and those pushed her off the roof. She managed to grab onto one of the ledges, but Kol was there less than a second later, pulling her up, pressing her small body to his.

"Okay?" he asked, his face showing genuine worry. She nodded in response.

Something changed. The shadows stopped moving forward, but those on the ground kept up with the train's speed. Only one of the vampires seemed to be walking towards them, from Kol's side. The Original pushed Bonnie behind him and felt her back pressing against his, once again. She was making sure they weren't attacked from the other side. And when the advancing vampire came close enough that his features became easy to make out, Kol couldn't help, but laugh. "Now, this is an unexpected meeting."

Fyodor nodded, raising his hand to greet Kol. "Good to see you too, old friend."

Kol felt Bonnie shift behind him, but it wasn't to fend off an attacker. She was uncomfortable, not knowing what was going on behind her back.

"Should we move inside? I don't think there's a tunnel coming up anytime soon, but this is a rather unique place to be having a serious conversation," Fyodor continued, his gaze shifting from Kol to Bonnie for a long moment.

Kol considered his suggestion. Again, he would be okay, whatever happened, but Bonnie was in danger. Even at this time, if enough vampires attacked him to claim his attention for a while, Fyodor wouldn't need more than a second to kill Bonnie for good. Klaus turned him back in the 12th century, and even back then, Fyodor was one of the few newly-made vampires, that Kol had been paying attention to.

He wasn't new anymore. But back when he was human, psychiatrists would have labeled him as a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder. And he had was seemed like an army of followers.

"Alright," Kol agreed, "let's go. This whole fighting on top of the train thing isn't as fun as I'd expected anyway."

He swept Bonnie with one hand, grabbed onto the same ledge she was hanging from a few minutes ago, and in one swift go moved them both back into the empty compartment. Fyodor was right behind them.

He looked around, asserting the damage and smiled at the pile of bloody shards of glass on the table. He made himself comfortable on Bonnie's bunk and kicked off his shoes.

"That's what I never understood about Americans. Why would you walk around your houses in street footwear, dragging dirt inside," Fyodor noted in response to the surprised looks they were giving him, pulled his legs up onto the bunk, crossing them in a graceful movement.

"That's not an accurate representation," Bonnie snarled, sitting down next to Kol on the opposite side of the compartment.

"I haven't seen you in such a long time, Fedya," Kol mused, "it's nice to catch up with old friends, even if your greeting wasn't warm enough to our liking."

He felt Bonnie shift under Fyodor's gaze.

"Our?" the Russian vampire smiled, "did you finally find a worthy companion for yourself?"

"I don't think our definitions of the word companion are quite the same, Fedya," Kol mused. He's heard enough to know that Fyodor's so-called 'companions' didn't survive more than I few months with him. He turned men and women to travel around the country by his side, and when he grew bored with them, he tortured and killed every single one. He was also responsible for turning at least half of the current vampire population in Russia, never severing the sire bond and was able to call on them whenever he needed a small army to take over the territory. By now, Kol was sure, Fyodor, a seemingly young man, scarred and sick, was an undisputed self-appointed ruler of the dark side of this entire country. Kol was sure their paths were going to cross ever since boarding the plane back in South Korea. He just wasn't completely sure how this was going to end.

"Here's the thing, friend," Fyodor started, resting his back on the wall, as comfortable as ever, "you arrived here, unannounced. Stole blood from a clinic in Vladivostok. Killed eighteen of my children. And even more, as of now. You're obviously traveling across the country, and you haven't told me why. I called your brother, and no matter what lies he told me, I'm sure he didn't know you were here. And after hearing who you're here with, even Niklaus couldn't hide his surprise. He's a shitty liar, your brother, and too full of himself," the vampire reached for the cooler and took out a blood bag. He bit into it and sucked some of the blood out. Grimacing, he gave the bag to Kol. "Old, stale and cold," he commented.

"What exactly do you want from us?" Bonnie asked, now completely still, but ready to move at any moment, "you want to know why we're here? I'm looking for my relative. She's living in one of the villages that have the same name, so we're checking all of them. I asked Kol to come with me because I obviously needed protection against your children."

Fyodor laughed, his eyes shining with amusement, "I doubt you have relatives in any of our villages. They aren't even that populated anymore. Moscow or Saint-Peterburg would be your best bet. But then, who am I to talk about your origins? As for the protection part, have you come here without an original vampire, you wouldn't have needed it. I have no reason to go after a young new vampire." He was charming, his voice sweet and soft, "I was one, after all, a long time ago. And had you done anything irresponsible, we would've taken care of you quickly and quietly."

Kol grinned, "as far as your definition of the word 'irresponsible' goes, she's an absolute angel."

Fyodor shifted, his feet on the floor, and put his boots back on. "You have two weeks, Kol," he said, "do whatever it is you came here to do. And leave. As for your friend," he winked at Bonnie, "she can stay as long as she wants."

And with that, he was out the window, and in just a couple of short minutes, the sea of shadows, following their train, disappeared, as if it was never there.

 

\------

Over the next few hours, they didn't talk. Bonnie spent the time trying to clean up the compartment, and Kol, having changed and washed the blood off, went around the train and compelled everyone they crossed paths with. They weren't on a train, never got on, even. As for the damage done to the train and their compartment in particular, well, since they were never there, they had nothing to do with it. He left the staff and passengers to explain it away to themselves. After all, there was no better explanation than one that humans thought of on their own.

Kol came back to the compartment to find Bonnie checking their location on her cellphone. "We're close to Khabarovsk right now. It's a big city, they must have car rentals there." He looked around, surprised to see most of the traces that could lead to someone realizing they were actually here, destroyed. There was still a bit of blood on the walls, but as it was drying up, it was blending seamlessly into the velvet.

"Yeah, that'll work," Kol agreed. He sat down next to Bonnie, who was avoiding pretty much everything Fyodor's touched during his short visit. Which meant, she was sitting on Kol's bunk, the bag of blood Fyodor's started nowhere to be seen. "I'm sorry, Bonnie," he said, "since I was supposed to be making sure you came out of this alive, I should've told you about that psycho."

"He's a charmer, huh?" Bonnie pressed her back against the wall, her backpack now separating them. Kol felt strangely protective of her, now more than ever, even though Fyodor had promised her safe passage, as long as he left in two weeks' time.

"Ted Bundy was a charmer, too," Kol snorted. He felt Bonnie's angry glare. "Love, I have no idea how he became what he is right now. All these followers, his so-called children. He adapted. Back when we first met, he was pretty much insane, unable to build any lasting relationship, not with anyone. I think I would've been the same if it wasn't for the relatively sane people in my family and the threat of our father keeping aт infinite dark shadow over the entire world."

"He knows who you are and what you and your family are capable of," Bonnie cut him off, "he's protecting his place and his country. I used to have the same motivation back in Mystic Falls," she turned to look at Kol, "I went about it a different way, which didn't exactly work out as well as I hoped."

Kol reached out and took her hand with both of his, squeezing lightly. "He's protecting his place in this country, and then the country itself. He has the liberty of making his own choices and the freedom of not caring for anyone else. Do you think he gives a damn about his 'children'?" Kol watched Bonnie's fingers, thin, cold and still, "you had your friends to answer to. The choices you made were to benefit them. Not the town you wanted to protect. And definitely not yourself."

She smiled, "I was done being the martyr long before the turn, and my friends knew that perfectly well. They did everything they could to get rid of the witch, and only when all else failed, they picked up the phone and called me. It wasn't the same as before."

"Apparently, they were so considerate of your troubles, they weren't even there when you were dying."

She stood up and over him, fuming. "You think I haven't figured it out? I was fighting, they were hiding. They're only human, after all. And they were so sorry for the way it turned out when they found out about me becoming a vampire. Caroline was the only one who saw her fault in it. After all, she was protecting Elena and Damon, while the woman attacking them was doing her best to kill me. If it wasn't for Elijah-"

She stopped mid-sentence, suddenly aware of having revealed the information she's been keeping secret from Kol. He stood up, angry. "My brother Elijah? He was the one who turned you?! When we get back, I--"

He didn't have a chance to finish, as Bonnie, slinging her backpack over the shoulder, flew out of the window.

 

  
\------

Kol jumped out after her without even a second of hesitation. He could see her running to the nearby woods, and reached her at the edge of the forest. He slammed into her, causing Bonnie to fall down. She wasn't trying to get out from under his body, so he only moved enough for her to turn to lie on her back.

"Is this how you deal with problems now, love? Running away?"

She shrugged. "Now that I'm faster, it usually works. I wanted a few moments to think."

Kol moved off her, sitting down on the damp grass. "You didn't want to become a vampire, did you?"

"Never."

"Did he know that?"

Elijah was the most honorable, the most considerate member of the Mikaelson family, of what was left of it. If he knew that Bonnie didn't want it, he would've left her to die. And why the hell was he even watching her? Why did he care enough to come and save her? He didn't care much about the witches, he didn't share Kol's respect for them. He admitted that some of them were powerful enough to cause problems, but that wasn't much of anything, really.

"You know," Bonnie started, sitting up and adjusting her backpack, "he said that the world would be better if I was still in it, vampire or not."

"Are you linked to my brother?" Kol asked, "there was never any love between you two before, but then he's not your ordinary vampire..."

"And there's no love between us now," Bonnie said, "I never felt it. As far as I know, there's no connection between Elijah and I."

"Good," Kol concluded, stood up and pulled Bonnie up and close to him. "Let me see the map, we should get moving."

As soon as he figured out their position in relation to the city of Khabarovsk, he took her hand in his, smiled at Bonnie and, mirroring each other's steps, they started running.

Kol was going to have a talk with Elijah when he got back to New Orleans. Considering his history with the mostly-incompetent Mystic Falls crew, he would've liked to know about such a development in Bonnie Bennett's life. Even if all he did with it was finding the woman and tormenting her about the unwanted changes she'd gone through. Now, he didn't want to make Bonnie miserable. He wanted to help her achieve her current goal, to make sure she got out of this alive, even if it seemed like his company was putting her in much greater danger than she would've been in had she been traveling alone. Hell, he wanted to do a lot of things to her and, most importantly, with her, and none of them were particularly tormenting.

He started to realize why Bonnie enjoyed running so much. It was the best way to clear one's mind. To make sense of one's thoughts. To finally understand, that after just a few days with Bonnie Bennett, he started to actually like her. And if she hadn't left him behind the veil all those years ago, he would've liked her then. For once, everything was pretty damn clear. She was strong and she was beautiful, and she saw value in an Original vampire whose family deemed him pretty much a lost cause. Always and forever, huh?

"Darling," he whispered. They didn't need to slow down to talk, so they kept running through the woods and across the fields, closer and closer to the city. They avoided villages and small towns, speeding past them. "When we check out the next village, you should go running in the Ural mountains. They're not that high, but really beautiful."

Bonnie stopped moving but didn't let go of Kol's hand. Flustered at the abrupt stop, he turned to her, glad that at least she didn't rip off his arm in the process. Without a single word, Bonnie pointed at the sign, barely visible behind the trees. And then, without a warning or any indication of her intention, she pulled Kol into an awkward hug. "Thanks," she murmured and her hold on him tightened.

Kol shifted his body and returned her embrace. "Hey," he whispered, "I'm sorry Elijah turned you. But you know what, darling?" he never expected to say something like this, "I am most definitely glad that you're not dead."

Bonnie looked up at him, smiled and took a step back. Breaking the hug, she laced her fingers through Kol's, and just like that, they started walking towards the road.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Back in New Orleans, watching Kol, enjoying the sounds and smells of the French Quater, the stiff bourbon she'd learned to appreciate back when she and Damon were stuck on the Other Side, Bonnie realized that now, as a vampire, her life was much more mellow and uneventful then back in her witch days in Mystic Falls. She was pretty damn sure that she was one of the very few vampires who shared this experience. Even with what's been happening lately, it was still far from the horrors she'd witnessed back in Virginia._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sorry for the delay, I've started a new job, which turned out to be more time-consuming and stressful than I thought. Now that I'm less, well, stressed, I'll try to post a chapter every weekend until we reach the end of this story.  
> 2\. We're going to play with some TVD and TO and other mythologies in the next chapter. For the meantime, it's Bonnie and Kol on an actual road trip.  
> 3\. THANKS to everyone who's reading this and, hopefully, enjoying the story. Again, I'm sorry for the delays, but life does have this horrible way of screwing up carefully planned out things and schedules.

They rented a car in Khabarovsk and Kol, with the help of a little compulsion, refilled the cooler with bags of blood at another private clinic. Bonnie was the first one to drive, and the initial twelve hours on the road passed in complete silence. She didn't even turn on the radio. Kol was reading his book in the back seat, sprawled across it, as comfortable as he could be. An old Toyota Camry wasn't the most spacious and luxurious vehicle they could've rented, but it was relatively inconspicuous and did a good enough job on the horrible roads Kol told her about a while back. 

She wasn't tired when Kol tapped her on the shoulder and offered to take the wheel. Bonnie accepted, and they changed seats. He turned on the radio, seemingly to a station that only played Russian rock music. Curled up in the back, Bonnie focused her attention on the words she could understand, trying to connect those into sentences that had meaning. After about an hour, Kol turned down the volume, and Bonnie was surprised to hear that he started talking.

"We were a happy family, it seemed," Kol's voice was gentle and quiet, "at least, I thought so. But I never really knew what was going on. All I could think about was my magic, that amazing power that burned through my veins, made me feel complete and more alive than anyone I knew."

She sat up and climbed over to the front, taking the empty passenger seat next to him. Kol didn't react to her sudden move; he just kept talking. He described the little village they lived in with impressive attention to detail, explained the family dynamic as he saw it back then, the dominant feeling of loss that had changed him forever when his mother performed an immortality spell on her family, intent to save them, but breaking something in the process. 

He told her about the lives he destroyed while on the run from Mikael with his siblings. About little towns, castles, and villages around the world, people he'd turned. He was lonely at the time, but the promise of carnage kept him going. "It was like replacing pure heroin with over the counter painkillers. Similar effect, but never close to being enough, no matter how many people I killed. But it was a thrill, and I couldn't find anything else."

He told Bonnie how back in the 12th century, he first came to Eastern Europe, turning and killing indiscriminately, spreading the word about the Originals, making them famous and a force to fear and hide from. He spoke of reuniting with his siblings in Italy and being daggered the first time. It was then that he realized, that none of them, except for Klaus maybe, were invincible. "Snuck up on me, put a special little blade through my heart, and here's a much more agreeable, 'Sleeping Beauty' version of an Original."

"And then you went to Africa?" Bonnie wondered, looking out the window. While she didn't expect him to tell the tale of his incredibly long life and his horrible deeds, she was more than willing to listen. Just not to look at him with even a hint of sympathy. Back then, he was an addict who didn't care about anything but where his next high was coming from. Bonnie didn't make the mistake of placing herself in the same category. Sure, she missed it. But not like that.

"Yeah, Africa," Kol smiled, "but not just there. I was all over the place. Spent a lot of time with witches, so my kill count dropped dramatically," he reached for the cooler they placed on the floor, took out one of the last bags from Vladivostok, tore into it and started drinking. "You should go there someday, darling. There's so much knowledge hidden in the small tribes. There are no limitations, to wrong paths to magic, to power, to connecting with elements, with spirits... They have herbs you've never heard of, practices you couldn't imagine. I learned some of them, even became an expert in a few, but could never actually practice."

Bonnie shifted, now looking at the road through the dusty windshield. 

"That's were you first heard about Silas?"

Kol hummed in response. "You never took me seriously, darling," he shrugged, "and I wasn't kidding. See what happens when people don't pay attention to what I'm saying?"

Bonnie felt tears form in the corners of her eyes. So she looked away, again. And Kol kept talking. About the slaughter of a cult that worshipped Silas, how in doing so, he convinced himself that Silas would never rise. About not fearing his father anymore, his family's betrayal, being daggered multiple times and losing hundreds of years of his life, of history, of events he could've witnessed. About his promise to become stronger.

A day later Bonnie was surprised to find them talking. Actually talking, discussing books they've both read, movies they've seen and music they've listened to. While it wasn't the most comfortable and flowing conversation that Bonnie took part in, it was nice to be talking about something other than the goal of this trip or remembering their past encounters.

 

\------  
Sylvia called, once. The cell service in the scarcely populated part of the country was spotty, but it was stable near larger villages. There was no hiding that, even with the progression of her and Kol's relationship, being stuck in the car with anyone for what now seemed like a month, but was in fact only a couple of days, was far from a perfect situation she could've found herself in. Syliva's call was welcome and appreciated.

"I tried calling a few times," her voice was as smooth and musical as when she was in the same room with Bonnie, even with a little distortion from the weak connection, "how's it going, sweetie? Is that Original treating you good?"

Kol snorted, easily able to hear every single one of Sylvia's words. Bonnie shushed him, holding up her hand. 

"Everything's fine," Bonnie smiled, "I'm sorry I haven't been in touch as much as I wanted to. We were a bit... distracted."

That earned her another snort from Kol. That wasn't the best way to describe what they've been through. But then, amazingly, they didn't encounter that much danger. Sure, going up against eighteen vampires didn't sound like a safe endeavor, and meeting Fyodor and his minions wasn't much fun either, and there was a clock, ticking away, counting the time they had left before having to get out of the country. Well, Bonnie could stay as long as she wanted, but that wasn't an option she'd seriously considered.

"I've been looking for more mentions of this Mariya lady," Sylia mused, "and I found something interesting. There was this witch, she's been dead for centuries now, who wrote about her friend, who was also a witch, becoming a vampire. It wasn't her choice, that's for sure," Sylvia sighed, a strangely human gesture from someone who's been dead for a long time, "anyway, that friend of hers went to Russia, hoping to do the same thing you're doing. She came back depressed, still just a vampire, and a week after she came back, she broke a leg off a chair and pushed it into her chest. So, you know what? Be careful, sweetheart. There's more to fear out there, not just the crazy-ass vampires."

Bonnie considered her friend's words. "Was she looking to restore her powers, too?"

"Yes. The witch described her as being obsessed with getting her magic back," there was a strong worry in Sylvia's voice. "Remember, it's not the only thing you have now, Bon."

"Thanks, Sylvie," Bonnie smiled, rubbing her forehead, "I'll call you when we make some progress on this, okay?"

"You do that, sweetie," Sylia's smile was obvious even over the phone, "talk to you soon."

"Bye," Bonnie finished the call with a sigh. Kol grinned, keeping his eyes on the road. 

"Seems like a nice little vampire," he said, "must be exciting, having a friend that's helping you for a change."

Bonnie shifted in her seat, uncomfortable and annoyed, "don't pretend as if you've been paying attention."

"And what if I was? Not in a creepy way, mind you," Kol smiled, "but I've been around for a while, and it was the first time I've seen so much strength in a girl your age. I mean, do you know of anyone else to have this powerful of a connection with a whole other dimension and not being broken by it?"

Bonnie turned to look at him, his eyes still firmly set on the road. "It did break me, for a while," she whispered, at that was it. They weren't going to talk about the loss of her father, her grandmother all those years ago. But there was an understanding now, a grasp on each other's lives and what became of them after everything that's happened. For her, it's been less than a quarter of a century, and for Kol, it's been a thousand years. Bonnie leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it would be like to live this long. To see history pass before her eyes.

\------  
They didn't stop until they reached Ekaterinburg. There was enough blood to keep them going, and both Kol and Bonnie managed to get some sleep when the other one was driving. Not that they needed much of it, anyway. And in Ekaterinburg, they only bothered to check out the impressive, newly renovated street, following the river's flow across the city. Her enhanced sense of smell picked up unwanted aromas coming from the seemingly clean water. It wasn't the worst she'd experienced, rivers tended to smell horrible in the cities, but it still stained the overall beauty of the landscape. 

The whole city looked strange. Downtown felt like two-thirds of the buildings in it appeared during the last ten to fifteen years; five-star hotels, skyscrapers and convention centers clashing with grey stains of Soviet architecture. There were probably much more green spaces before major construction took over the city, but after more than four days in a car, driving across the country, in which most of the population was concentrated in just a few towns, Bonnie was just okay with spending some time in one of those. But Fyodor's clock was still going, and Bonnie didn't want to find herself in a precarious position with the man who was practically ruling over the vampire population in the entire country.

\------  
A couple of hours later they were far from the city, near the second Yaganovo village. Bonnie felt hairs stand up on the back of her neck, all but shaking with excitement. Soon, her search would be complete. Either here, or in another small village, a little over sixty miles from Moscow. The drive to the final destination wouldn't be as long as this one, and it was possible for it to go without incident. 

Back in New Orleans, watching Kol, enjoying the sounds and smells of the French Quater, the stiff bourbon she'd learned to appreciate back when she and Damon were stuck on the Other Side, Bonnie realized that now, as a vampire, her life was much more mellow and uneventful then back in her witch days in Mystic Falls. She was pretty damn sure that she was one of the very few vampires who shared this experience. Even with what's been happening lately, it was still far from the horrors she'd witnessed back in Virginia. 

"Hey, there it is," Kol noted, pointing at the white sign down the road, close enough to make out the letters. 

The sign was just a few yards away when a tall, slim figure appeared in front of their car. Bonnie's reflexes kicked in and she turned the wheel, bringing the car to the side of the road. Had she still been human, they would've been wrapped around one of the trees now. But she managed to keep the car on the road, slamming the breaks and turning the wheel once again. She hit her head on the wheel as the vehicle came to a halt, and Kol broke his nose on the dashboard. 

The hit was bad, but nothing your average vampire couldn't handle. Kol was the first one to collect himself, muttering curses and placing the broken bones back in place, and Bonnie was fast to follow suit. But she wasn't fast enough to stop him from opening the car door and speeding over to the figure. It wasn't before a light and barely noticeable flick of the person's wrist sent Kol flying across the road and into the muddy ditch on the side of it when Bonnie realized that the figure was actually a girl. She was extraordinarily pale, even more so than your average vampire, had one of those classic pixie cuts and was wearing baggy clothes. It was only her round face, thin fingers, and Twiggy-inspired makeup, with drawn-on bottom lashes and thick black lines on the lids, that gave away her gender. 

Bonnie got out of the car and sped towards Kol's unmoving body, but was stopped by an invisible wall before her. The girl smiled and lifted her arm, and Kol, still unconscious, rose with it. 

"Follow me," she said, dropping the Original's body into Bonnie's waiting arms. She started walking down the road, moving towards the village. After a few steps, she stopped and turned to face Bonnie, still standing in the middle of the road. "I do not wish to harm you or your friend. You are looking for information, and you need guidance. Do not think that Fedya was the only one who is interested in your trek across this country. Just like before, this man is drawing a lot of attention to himself, and to you, by association. You thought you picked a perfect partner for your travels, miss Bennett. And the only thing you have succeeded in is drawing even more attention to yourself. What were you thinking, traveling across such a country with a thousand-year-old asshole calling himself an Original?"

She'd taken Kol out with a flick of her wrist. She had an accent Bonnie couldn't place. And under her thick eye makeup and youthful disposition, there were years of wisdom she wasn't trying to hide anymore.

Bonnie didn't see any point in arguing or trying to run or asking questions at the moment. Kol's body was weighing her down, and she didn't have the heart to leave him as he was and make a break for it. So she lay him down carefully onto the back seat, got behind the wheel and started driving, slowly, after the girl, who was walking down the road, to the second village on Bonnie's list. And through the darkness of her fear, pushed a weak ray of hope that maybe, just maybe, she was getting closer to the answers she'd been seeking.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A lovely story with barely anything to back it up,” Kol snorted, glancing at Bonnie. She was engrossed and fascinated, her eyes wide, bright with a wet shine. “Should I fall to my knees now? Should I beg your forgiveness for coming here and killing a few people? Should I stop calling myself what I am? This story is nothing but a fairytale. You…”_
> 
> _He didn't get a chance to finish._
> 
> _“Why don't you put your hand into the fire, boy?”_

The ridiculous thing about driving after a naturally absent-minded creature was in the fact that Bonnie could not, for the love of anything holy, find a way to follow the girl without regularly having to accelerate or slam on the break. She was stopping all the time unexpectedly, her attention grabbing at some ridiculous thing she found interesting for some equally absurd reason. Kol’s body was thrown around the back seat at every sudden stop or takeoff Bonnie had to perform. And if it weren’t for her growing frustration with the fact that their unwanted guide seemed to be doing her little dance just to bother Bonnie Bennett, she would’ve been more careful. 

While Bonnie did, in fact, feel sorry for not paying as much attention to Kol’s comfort, as she could’ve, she was getting pissed off at this creature, powerful enough to take out an Original, one of the few all but invincible vampires in the entire world. She put a wall between him and Bonnie, but she didn’t--

She didn’t feel like a witch, didn’t smell like one. And except for the apparent power, her almost purely white skin and years of experiences many people couldn’t even imagine reliving, there was nothing vampiric about her. Bonnie Bennett has met a lot of vampires over the years, and most of them had this sense of restlessness, of everlasting hunger about them. They saw the world as their playground, and each time someone like her, the little young witch from Mystic Falls, crushed this delusion to bits, they couldn’t hide their astonishment at the fact. This girl, on the other hand… a woman, even, she was different from every undead creature Bonnie had encountered over the years. She looked like she was fragile, but projected energy unmatched in its power.

Bonnie could do very little to place her smell. It reminded her of a stack of dusty old books and sour, green apples, still a couple of weeks away from harvest. Her clothes looked like they belonged to a man at some point, worn-down and visibly soft in every way, but cared for over the years. Her once-white sneakers lost their color to a muddy grey years ago, but the laces were bright-blue and obviously new.  
Bonnie diverted her attention from the woman she was following to the Mikaelson in the back seat. He had little trouble fitting in there with relative comfort, as proven by hours he’d spent there on their way from Khabarovsk. He was beginning to stir and moan, like any regular person coming to after being hit over the head. Bonnie checked on him in the mirror without stopping the car. A hit, no matter how strong, wouldn’t break an Original. And he was, after all, slammed into the ground with incredible force. Nothing more, nothing less. He’ll be fine, Bonnie thought, there’s no other way, after all. Nothing this simple could make an Original fall and not get back up. 

Bonnie stopped the car near one of the houses, following their guide’s lead, when Kol finally sat up, pressing his hands to each side of his face, trying to regain both control and dignity. “Shit,” he hissed, “what the hell was that thing?”

He got out of the car after Bonnie, with immense difficulty, and just for a second Bonnie thought to offer him a helping hand. But he was staring down the woman that didn’t lose breath over throwing around an all-mighty Original, and she was, in fact, waiting for them to get out of the car and follow her even further. Kol’s lips were moving, muttering curses. But he stood firmly on his ground, ready to take her on. Well-- only looking like it. 

“Come on, then,” the woman said, turning to walk into a small but sturdy wooden cottage. Their rented Toyota was parked in a driveway that was covered in small gravel, behind a large and dirty SUV. There were some puddles, indicating that it was raining a few hours before. Bonnie was surprised, as they haven’t encountered any precipitation during the last couple of days. She was following the woman down the driveway when Kol’s firm grip stopped her. 

“I’d like to know who you are, first,” he growled at the woman. He was gaining his strength back, but the fact that he was far from being his best was impossible to hide.

“Sonya,” the woman shrugged after a few seconds, during which it seemed like she was thinking of a name for herself, “if you call me Sonya, I will answer,” she scratched the back of her head, “as a matter of fact, I’m okay with Sofia, too. But never, never Sophie.” 

Bonnie opened her mouth to reply, but was stopped by a strong desire to shut up, “don’t bother, honey, I know all about you two. Since when I wonder?” she threw her head back and looked up at the darkening sky, “ah! Since you compelled your way into a couple of first-class tickets back in San-Francisco. Anyway, please come inside,” she gestured towards the front door of the house, which stood a bit ajar. “Don’t forget to take your shoes off, or father will be pissed.”

Kol’s hold on Bonnie’s hand has long since relaxed but was as firm as ever now. “Father?”

Bonnie shrugged, moved Kol’s fingers so that they were squeezed in her own and started towards the house, the smell of freshly-baked pastries and promise of warmth in the chill of the early evening. She might have been a vampire, but these little things still brought smiles to her face. For a second or a minute they made her feel like she was human again.

 

\------  
“This is an extraordinary kind of fucked up,” Kol whispered to Bonnie, while Sonya’s father was shuffling burning logs in their large stone stove that took about half of the space in the reasonably large kitchen. He was a large, burly man, with thick stubble on his cheeks and wide, calloused palms. He was a welcoming man, and even though he barely smiled, there was warmth in his gaze. His name was Pyotr, he looked like he was around forty-five, but hard work, rough climate, a bit of alcohol here and there and hand-rolled cigarettes tended to age people faster. But not for a single second did Kol believe he was Sonya’s father.

“Ya viydu s druzyami poboltat’,” she smiled at Pyotr and, after getting his permission, gestured for Bonnie and Kol to follow her. 

“He’s not your father,” Kol stated as soon as they were out of the house. Sonya was building a small fire in a stone pit. Bonnie stood under an apple tree, barely managing to keep her feet in one place. She was itching to find out what Sonya knew and who she was.

“Petya thinks that I am,” her smile shone brightly with the growing flames, “no harm in that. He lost his wife and daughter in a fire a few years back, I compelled him and everyone around here to forget about his loss of his daughter and gave her back to him. He’s going to die in what, thirty years? That’s not a long time to spend making someone happy, is it not?”

“But that’s a lie! The man needs to have his--”

Sonya didn’t give Kol a chance to finish. “What, his pain?”

Bonnie sighed. “His truth,” she whispered.

“But it is. His truth,” Sonya laughed, “do I really need to explain myself to you?” 

Her smile grew wider, but there was no amusement left in her eyes. “You want your magic back,” she gestured at Bonnie, but kept looking at Kol, “you’ve heard rumors about Masha and you want to see if it’s true.”

There was no reason to look or feel dumbfounded, but both Kol and Bonnie did so anyway. 

“You won’t get it,” Sonya continued, “you’ll most probably die during the process, and personally, I don’t like the thought of anyone as determined as you,” she was looking at Bonnie now, “dying while going towards her goal because one, just one piece of a puzzle was missing when she reached the last step.”

Kol moved to shield Bonnie from the piercing gaze of their new acquaintance. Who knew that together, they’d share something, ever. He did so with regular human speed, feeling like it intensified his intent, made it clear and known to both women, one behind him and one in front of him. 

Apparently, though, Bonnie didn’t want to stay hidden or protected. She stepped into view, on Kol’s left side, sure and strong, but her fingers were suddenly on his wrist, squeezing lightly in search of some reassurance of any normalcy she could bargain for. 

There was no doubt in Kol’s mind that he wanted to provide her with that. He just wasn’t sure he was or will ever be able to.

“What piece?” he asked, “what puzzle? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hell,” Sonya snickered, “such an amusing concept. It’s fabulous in its simplicity and keeps so many people in check. Such a strange thing, building religions around concepts of guilt and fear. I will never, not in a billion years, get the appeal.” She sat down on the ground, close to the stone pit and the fire in it. “You, Bonnie Bennett, seem to think that you know the world. That you know the supernatural side of it, how it came to be and what it represents. You have determination and power and a wonderful, pure heart, that was broken many times but never lost its innocence. Your mind, however, has little clarity, and that’s what you’re missing. Believe it or not, you,” again, she pointed at Bonnie, “I want to help. You are very special, Bonnie Bennett, and you deserve to get what you’re looking for. So, I’m going to give you this last piece of the puzzle, and if your friend,” suddenly, she grinned at Kol, “wants to listen, he’s not forbidden to do so.”

 

\------  
Kol was starting to get mad. He wanted little more than to lunge on the woman and tear her throat out. But he was taking deep breaths, something that he didn’t try for hundreds of years, and counting to ten, then to fifty, and after that, to a hundred. With all his trying to calm down, a strange realization came over Kol. He wasn’t stopping himself from attacking the woman just because she was obviously stronger. He wasn’t doing it because of Bonnie, who’d judge him and give him one of her disapproving looks. He was filling his lungs with air and pushing it out again for the definite pleasure of knowing that he could. Not breathe, but control his urges, his desires, simple things like this, that he wasn’t able to push down for the longest time. For once, everything seemed possible and brilliant and like “back in the day.” Vampires weren’t unfamiliar with the notion of everything being better back in the day in the opinion of people who were young and growing up back in that miraculous time they always longed for. It was pretty much the same for the undead population of the world, though. While they saw the world differently, experienced more changes, progress, and degradation than your oldest living human person, a lot of them longed for easier, “better” times. When things were simpler, when technology wasn’t as advanced as it is today, when leaving people in dark alleys was just an afterthought, but not an attempt to hide from surveillance cameras that every building seemed to have now.

“There are a few things about our world that you need to know, ” she said, moving over to sit on a tree stump near the stone pit, “first of all, magic isn’t that hard to come by. And second, this man,” Sonya pointed at Kol and met his angry gaze with one stronger, better, maybe even angrier, “is not an Original. None of his relatives are, in fact, original vampires. Well,” she laughed, “you might say that they are an original fucked up, half-assed version of us, a genetic mistake and a horrible mutation that, some of us think, needs to be eradicated.”

Kol found it harder and harder to keep his calm. He started for the woman, but Bonnie turned out to be strong enough to pull him back. Him, an Original vampire. 

“Who are the real Originals then?” Bonnie questioned, “if not those people.”

Sonya chuckled, trying to keep in most of the laughter. She couldn’t help it and started giggling almost hysterically. “Different people, my dear Miss Bennett,” she smiled, “people who are much, much older than a thousand years. Those who came right after the Norse Gods left. Those that lay dead, with the apples of Idunn bringing them back.”

 

\------  
It was a fascinating tale. Ten people died, were burned together, and under their ashes lay Idunn's apples, those few she dropped while flying from Valhalla to Thiazi's keep. Those apples held fantastic power in them, and even from as little as ashes, they woke ten people once again. But apples of everlasting youth were to be consumed by gods, not people, and their power was too strong. 

They didn’t just bring the people back, they made the people immortal, and never needing food or drink. They didn’t age and their strength was that of thousands of men. They were young and beautiful, they did not fear the sun, and they were going to live forever. Having no one but each other to share their secret. 

But they did not stay like that. A group of ten, each with different talents, kept watch over the world, recorded births of civilizations and figured out a way to make brothers and sisters. They picked people with caution and never turned those who did not want that. Mariya Evgenievna was one of them. One of very few genuinely immortal beings, scattered over the world. They watched, they listened and interfered when there was no danger in revealing their nature. They were not looking for recognition and they did not wish to become anyone's gods. They watched and they kept records, so that when those writing history books forgot everything but their lies, there would be a true account of the world's journey, the people's growth and degradation. 

“A lovely story with barely anything to back it up,” Kol snorted, glancing at Bonnie. She was engrossed and fascinated, her eyes wide, bright with a wet shine. “Should I fall to my knees now? Should I beg your forgiveness for coming here and killing a few people? Should I stop calling myself what I am? This story is nothing but a fairytale. You…” 

He didn't get a chance to finish. 

“Why don't you put your hand into the fire, boy?” 

Kol felt his legs move on their own accord. He saw his hand reaching for the flames, going into the midst of them. Bonnie gasped. 

It burned. 

“Another.” 

In it went. There was a sniffle from behind his back, and Kol tried to fight the words that rang in his head. She didn't even look him in the eye, and the compulsion could not have been that strong. But it was, and, stupefied, he watched his flesh burn and crackle. The smell was horrid, nothing like he expected it to be. Kol wanted to puke, felt bile coming up, but his mouth wouldn't open to let him get rid of it. His palms were black and cracking now, and the pain was driving him mad. Kol felt thoughts leave his brain, replaced with nothing but the unbearable sensation in his destroyed fingers and palms. 

“Your face.” 

The flame was turning blue. Even from a foot away, he could feel it scorching the skin around his eyes. And before the last sane thought left his burning head, he heard Bonnie’s terrified scream, felt the pain weaken and saw the flames turn orange once again. 

 

\------  
Kol didn't expect to open his eyes again. He didn't expect to feel any sort of normalcy, but for some ridiculous reason, Bonnie's smell surrounding him, pushing away everything else, felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He shifted, slowly starting to feel the stiff ground beneath his body and Bonnie's thighs under his head. Her fingers were running through Kol's hair at a slow pace, and when he looked up at her, he only saw her chin and a bit of dark wavy hair, flowing with the wind. 

"Where are we?" he managed to speak on the second try. His vocal cords were coarse and burning. 

Bonnie looked down, smiling at him. "In the mountains. It really is amazing up here."

Kol turned on his side and took in the surroundings. His vision was still blurred, but he could make out the fast river underneath, thick hundred-year-old trees on the other side of it and bright-blue sky all around. He looked down and focused on his pink fingers, brand-new flesh enveloping the bones of his hand.

"That bitch," he hissed and Bonnie drew in a short breath.

"You fell into the fire after you passed out. It wasn't as hot anymore, but it was still too much," she started, "Sonya gave me directions of how to find Maria Evgenievna, helped me put you in the car and saw us off."

Kol snickered. "Doesn't make her any less of a raving bitch. Although, I have to admit that I respect her methods. Got me to believe in what she was, anyway."

Bonnie's light touch on Kol's cheek directed his gaze back to her face. "Do you, really?"

"Do you think she was lying?"

Bonnie sighed. "She told me that if we shared what we learned with anyone other than Masha, she'd have us killed in a couple of hours."

"I believe that, too," Kol shrugged. "I won't be talking to anyone about that woman burning me to a crisp in the blue flames of magical fire. Rumors like that damage reputations and mine is just where I like it at the moment."

Bonnie responded with a small smile, which disappeared from her lips in just a few seconds. "She told me something else before we left. It's about you and your family."

Kol pushed up from the ground to sit up. He took Bonnie's hand in his, though it was still aching and itching, as the skin was thickening over the brand-new flesh. He nodded, ready to listen.

"Esther screwed up the spell," Bonnie said, "she stole it, but used the wrong kind of magic to perform it. With everything done correctly, all of you would've been like Sonya and her kin. You wouldn't need blood. Or want it, for that matter. You wouldn't have the urge to kill. And you," she looked at Kol, "you'd still have your magic."

He smiled at her and covered Bonnie's fingers with his other palm. No point in wishing to turn back time or wondering, what would have been. "You know what you should do, while I'm over here, gaining my strength back and emptying our cooler?" There was a mischievous grin on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes. 

"You should go running."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The mythos behind Sonya and her kind is quite obviously inspired by Norse mythology.  
> 2\. Thanks to everyone who's reading this. We're getting closer and closer to the romance, to the climax, and to the ending.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"So," he smiled, "what are you going to do when you get it back?"_
> 
> _"I'm going to stand in the middle of some forest or on top of some mountain and do as much magic as that place is going to be willing to take."_
> 
> _"Just for fun?" Kol was smiling at her, barely paying any attention to the road. They seemed to be the only ones on it, anyway._
> 
> _"Just for fun," Bonnie repeated._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, here's the thing. Bits of this chapter might seem weird if the trust Bonnie and Kol have for each other at this point of the story is not apparent. If it's not - completely my fault and I'm very sorry about that. But please remember that they've seen each other at their worst and most vulnerable (and not just in this fic).

Bonnie didn’t hesitate in taking Kol’s suggestion and running with it. Quite literally, as a matter of fact.

She ran along the rivers and up the mountainsides, jumped from cliff to cliff with little to no effort, got her feet wet in fast streams and all the while, laughed like a brilliantly mad woman, bursting with excitement and joy. But in the back of her mind, Bonnie knew that this time, someone was waiting for her to come back, so she kept all her jumps and climbs and turns in mind, to make sure she had no trouble coming back to Kol.

It mattered, what happened to him just the day before, but the dark shadow of his blackened flesh had been illuminated with a bit of hope. Sonya, her methods notwithstanding, gave her something to think about, bits of information to consider.

And it was, admittedly, pretty damn clear. The only way for Bonnie to have a chance of getting her magic back was to accept the fact that the world as she knew was somewhat different from the real one. And she was one of the few who knew about it, knew a small part of the real story of how some of the supernatural in it came to be. The Original family, their threats and troubles seemed so trivial now. Bonnie was sure Kol contemplated that too, now that he was left alone with a cooler full of blood bags and nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.

Abruptly, she stopped in the middle of the stream. It was fast and loud and strong, but Bonnie's boot-clad feet didn’t lose their grip on the rough stones, yet to be smoothed by the constant flow of icy-cold water she was fighting against at the moment. It was coming up to her waist, but she wasn’t concerned with getting wet. After all, a few minutes of running at the top of her speed, and her clothes and boots would be dry again. What didn’t fit into her thought process, was her concern about Kol. About how he may have taken what Sonya told them, how things he believed for a thousand years, about himself and his family, things that gave him confidence, were suddenly exposed to be something as simple as lack of information with a few of his mother’s lies sprinkled for good measure. And how discouraging it must have been for him to be sent flying with as little as a flick of a seemingly frail girl's hand. How horrifying, to lose control of his mind and body, when he probably didn’t think it possible for something like this to happen to him or any of his siblings.

And, while it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, how heartbreaking it was for her to hear Kol’s screams, to see his flesh burn away and--

The smell. Traces of it were still abusing her nostrils, it seemed, or maybe it was a trick her mind was playing. But suddenly, she knew what she had to do, took off along the stream, and ran back to where she started from.

\------

She found Kol sitting on the same spot, his legs dangling from the edge of the cliff, with about six empty blood bags scattered around him. That meant that they would have to hit another clinic, soon. After all, the hunger always came up in the pit of Bonnie’s stomach after an intense run like the one she’d just finished.

But for a while, that kind of hunger would be the last thing on her mind.

Kol stood up to greet her, seemingly fully recovered from the events of the previous night. His hands were no longer pink, and his stance was sure and firm on the ground. “Hello, love,” he grinned at her, “good run, was it?”

It seemed like he had something else to say, but didn’t get a chance to do so. In a short moment, Bonnie was on him, her arm squeezing his no longer aching body. 

If it had been any other vampire she attempted to hug with such excessive force, they would’ve been flying off the cliff at the moment, but Kol met her head on, his heels digging into the ground below, locking them in place with little effort.

“Hey,” he leaned away from her, and Bonnie felt his fingers brush her cheek, urging her to look at him, “Darling, is everything--?”

Again, he didn’t get a chance to finish, with Bonnie’s broad and bright smile apparently knocking him off balance. “I’m just,” she started, holding herself back from giggling, “really happy for some reason.”

She saw his eyes widen for a second; his face much closer to hers, just an inch, maybe, but that made all the difference, it seemed. Reaching up, Bonnie searched his eyes for something to stop her from completing her next move but found nothing but adoration and a hint of surprise.

And then, with no hesitation at all, sure of every single little movement, of every touch and slight curve, she reached up and kissed him.

It wasn’t a tentative kiss you read about in sweet romantic books, where a girl, unsure and scared to make the first move, manages to gather enough courage to close her lips on those belonging to an object of her affection. She wasn’t leaning back from him, waiting for that hungry, urgent response, waiting for the man to plunge in and take control.

Oh, no. 

Bonnie kissing Kol was nothing like that. It had all the hunger and all the urgency already; she wasn’t surprised by her actions at the very least, and undoubtedly, he wasn’t either, apart from the initial shock. She felt his arms tighten around her, inhuman strength a given now, felt his arms move up, one to rest on her neck as another in her hair.

It was when Kol went down to brush his tongue against a particularly sweet spot behind her ear that she started tearing his clothes off. She didn’t register the two piece of fabric that had been his shirt a second ago flying over the cliff, only the fact that her clothes were disappearing, too, that she was being lowered down to the rocky ground, with the discomfort of it barely noticeable now. 

 

\-------

"Now that was unexpected," said Kol, propping himself up on both elbows. As Bonnie stood up and started collecting the scattered items of her clothing, she felt his gaze settle on her body. She didn't feel the urge to cover up, relishing the last rays of the sun warming her up. "Fun," Kol continued, "but certainly unexpected."

"What's unexpected," Bonnie was fast to reply, "is that there's a vampire sitting in a tree about a mile away, watching us very closely. One of Fyodor's children, is he?"

Kol stood up after her and stared absentmindedly into the thick trees. The leaves weren't as prominent as they would've been in June or July, so the vampire watching them was sticking out from his almost emerald surroundings. 

"D'you want me to take care of him, love?" apparently, Kol's accent got even stronger after a bit of rolling around on a cliff, an ex-witch pressed against him. Bonnie enjoyed that subtle change in his voice and focused on that, instead of the intense pleasure, still apparent with every nerve ending on her body responding to accidental touches of her own fingers, as she was putting her clothes back on.

"No," she smiled, "I don't particularly care for voyeurism or enjoy having sex in public places, but I don't think we should piss off your old friend anymore."

"Ah, and just when I thought you were becoming quite fun, Bonnie Bennet," Kol sniggered, turned away and reached for his jeans. Fyodor's vampire was a clear reminder that they needed to move on to the last village, the one where they were finally going to get the magic back.

 

\------

After their encounter with Sonya, Bonnie gave up on all doubts about the real reason Kol went with her on this trip. It might have been subconscious at first, but she had absolutely no doubts that he was looking to get his magic back, just as she was. After all, he all but confessed it on the way from Khabarovsk to Ekaterinburg. His stories, the way he spoke about losing his powers-- and Sonya's tale was most definitely not just for Bonnie's benefit. After all, she made sure that Kol understood, that he believed. 

 

They were back in the car, course set on Moscow, with another long stretch of road ahead of them. Weirdly enough, there wasn't a single awkward moment. Bonnie and Kol fell back into the comfortable silence achieved during the previous few days. When Bonnie was driving, Kol kept to his book, and when he took the wheel, she stuck to hers, muttering foreign phrases under her breath. After Kol grew tired of laughing at her pronunciation, he started giving her tips, which, even considering his impatience, turned out to be helpful.

They didn't speak about what happened at Sonya's house or in the mountains, either, but the memory was fresh on Bonnie's mind, and always apparent and sort of-- there. She didn't know what to think of it, what to do with it, and since Kol didn't press the issue, it didn't come up.

But staying quiet for two whole days wasn't his forte, so, little way from Ekaterinburg, where they stocked up on blood, which was supposed to be enough to last them until the flight back the US, he started up another conversation. "So," he smiled, "what are you going to do when you get it back?"

Bonnie laughed at the question, as it wasn't the first time Kol wondered that exact thing, but he never asked about it in such a blunt way. She climbed into the front seat, leaving the bright yellow book behind, and put on her seatbelt. 

"I have no clue, actually," she rolled down the window a bit. Light rain, more of an annoyance, was spraying water across the fields, which were plentiful it that part of the country. It barely made any difference, though, and wasn't bothersome enough for Bonnie to close the window. Kol didn't seem to mind, showing his appreciation for the fresh air with few deep breaths, a gesture rarely seen with any vampire over a few hundred years, nevermind an original immortal being. But he wasn't one, not really, and, weirdly enough, that idea didn't take much time to settle in Bonnie's mind. It wasn't strange or difficult to comprehend. It made sense, even though the story that Sonya told them sounded like part of some mythos, not reality. But then, hearing it from a truly immortal being that has seen the entirety of human history-- 

"I'm going to stand in the middle of some forest or on top of some mountain and do as much magic as that place is going to be willing to take."

"Just for fun?" Kol was smiling at her, barely paying any attention to the road. They seemed to be the only ones on it, anyway. 

"Just for fun," Bonnie repeated. There was a pause, a long and comfortable silent moment, before she asked, "and you? What are you going to do with it?"

Kol's eyes widened for a second, but he regained his composure with little effort. "And why do you think I'm planning to follow your example and try to get my powers back? Because I miss it? Because of a few stories? You're putting more meaning in it than there actually is. I'm perfectly content with being what I am, what my entire family has become." He turned the wheel, stopping the car on the side of the road. In a moment, he was suddenly out and fuming, and Bonnie followed suit. 

They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields, the smell of rye and stale water in the human-made lake. Kol paced along a short stretch of the road, but Bonnie stood her ground by the Toyota, waiting for him to say something, to say more.

She didn't have to wait long. "You think that because of some ridiculous story told by that-- whatever she was, I'm going to change who I am?" his next words came out a roar, "I'm an Original vampire! I'm one of the strongest creatures in the entire world! There is absolutely nothing for me to gain! Nothing, nothing to make me whole again--"

He stumbled over the words, and Bonnie was moving before she realized what she was doing. Her fist slammed into his jaw, and she heard bones break: Kol's and her own. As he was getting over the shock, she brought her boot down on his kneecap. Kol fell, crying out from the sudden pain, his eyes wide with shock. But Bonnie didn't try to hit him anymore. She was moving the broken bones in her fingers into place.

"I've known you a long time, you idiot," she hissed, "you're an arrogant prick, Kol. Your family is a bunch of sadistic assholes. For a thousand fucking years you've been running around trying to replace what you've lost. And don't-- don't try to pretend that you're not, because you told me so, multiple times, and you weren't lying. And now, now that you have a chance to actually get what you've been searching for for fucking centuries if on and off, you're retreating into your damn shell again? Because you don't want to accept that you've got something to be afraid of now? That there are creatures, which are impossible to overpower? Even for you or your siblings? Well, fuck you, Kol." She was the one fuming now. Bonnie's hits did more than bring him down to the ground. Kol was quiet now, carefully fixing his broken knee and jaw to mend themselves properly, in just a few seconds.

"Weren't you afraid?" he was sitting on the ground now, the running engine of their car louder than his voice, "when you met our family, when you faced Klaus, Silas, whatever else you had to fight, creatures  attacking that stupid little town of yours, weren't you afraid? Weren't you afraid that you'd fail? When there was one chance to do something right, weren't you afraid?"

Bonnie crouched down next to him, careful to avoid even the lightest, briefest of touches. "I was a teenage witch in a horrible situation. Whenever a Sabrina rerun was on, I turned it off, because I was mad and jealous. Also, because I didn't have time to watch TV, with the world ending all the time, did I? But you," she smiled, "you've been daggered, you've died, you've been stuck in a different dimension, you've woken up to different centuries--"

Kol's fingers closing around hers startled Bonnie, but it wasn't long before she continued. "I won't say that it all worked out for you because of courage, you are certifiably insane, after all, but it had to have played an important part," she sighed, tracing a circle on his palm with her thumb. "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay."

"Sure," he laughed, but it came out strained and painful, "with your determination and my apparent insanity, we're going to conquer the bloody world, aye?" Kol's accent was growing thicker, again. "You know, there's a huge community of witches back in New Orleans. After we're done here, you could--"

Bonnie's reassuring smile faltered, and with it, Kol's face dropped, if only for a short moment. "It's a nice suggestion, but don't get me wrong--" she started, opened her mouth to continue and closed it again, standing up and pulling Kol with her. 

 

"It's my family, isn't it?" he said, back at the wheel, and they were driving again. 

Bonnie sighed. It was, in a sense, his family. His power-hungry brother first, an obsessive sister and the other one, who thought he was going her a favor all those years ago, driven by pride and his own twisted sense of honor. It was about conflicts that would inevitably arise because of her arrival, as if New Orleans didn't go through enough since the Mikaelson family returned to their humble abode, if not every single one of them was able to stir things up. It was about the innocents that always suffered, even more so when she was around, trying to help them.

"While I believe that the city would be better off without your brothers and sister making a home there, I'm pretty sure that my unannounced appearance would make the situation even worse."

"Oh, love, we wouldn't come unannounced," Kol's grin was back, and Bonnie was pleased to see its return, "we'd blast our way across the supernatural part of the city, flaunting our brilliance for everyone to see and fear."

Bonnie laughed at his suggestion, ran her fingers through her damp hair and looked out the window. Whatever it was that's been pulling her towards Kol, much more powerful since the run in the mountains, she had no desire to get rid of it anymore. It could be a very special and fucked up sort of a vacation romance. They'd have fun, and get close and have brilliant sex in amounts as ridiculous as possible, and then they'd be back in the States, and it would never happen again.

 

As Kol was humming to a Led Zeppelin song on the radio, one she'd never heard before, Bonnie didn't smile. This theory, the little fantasy she'd cooked up made a lot of sense and was undoubtedly easy to achieve, but something about it felt heartbreakingly wrong.


End file.
